That instalment was insufficient for his requirements. He relieved his father of his charge, took her in his own arms and folded them about her.
And he whispered softly in her ear—
“Will you refuse to be mine now, dearest, dearest Lotte?”
“Oh, Mark,” she murmured, “my heart is so full, I cannot speak to you!”
“What! not one little word, Lotte?” he urged. “And see, here is Flora; will you not greet her as your sister?”
And, in truth, there was Flora, who, in her turn, took possession of Lotte; and Nathan Gomer, who had no intention of being out of the way where happiness was going on.
And now the question was put formally to Lotte, that she might no more have misgivings about the nature of her reception in Wilton’s family, whether she would accept Mark for her husband?
Lotte murmured something about consulting her brother Charley.
Such a notion was at once promptly and generally ignored; and so she said, clearly and earnestly, that to wed Mark would be the happiest event which could happen to her in her whole life.
Of course she was borne off in triumph to Wilton’s mansion in the Regent’s Park, where, to her satisfaction, she found assembled to meet her Helen Riversdale, and her husband, and Eva Grahame, and her brother Charley.