After all, it had come about quite naturally. Perhaps Thorold had read something in Waveney's eyes, as she listened to that old love-story, that made him change his purpose of silence. But he never repented it.
"We may have to wait for years," he said to her, when the first agitation of their great joy had calmed a little. But Waveney only gave him one of her radiant smiles.
"Faithfulness has not gone out with powder and patches," she said, in her quaint way. "I would rather wait through a lifetime, knowing without doubt that you loved me, than have to exist through years of chilling silence." And in his heart Thorold agreed with her.
Everard Ward gave his consent very willingly when Thorold, in rather an embarrassed voice, told him that he feared they could not be married for perhaps four or five years. He received the news with profound satisfaction.
"Chaytor is a son-in-law after my own heart," he said to Althea. "He will not rob me of my little girl for the next five years. 'My dear fellow, I am delighted to hear it,' I said to him; but he looked at me rather reproachfully."
"I hope they will not have to wait quite so long," returned Althea, gravely.
But Everard would not endorse this. Lord Ralston had robbed him of his Mollie, and he could not spare his little Waveney.
Perhaps Althea was the most astonished at the news. Thorold and Waveney had kept their secret so well that she had never guessed it; but when her first surprise was over, she rejoiced heartily in their happiness.
"Thorold has grown years younger since his engagement," she said one day to Joanna. "He is not half so grave and sober now." And Joanna assented to this.
"I am getting very fond of Waveney," she replied. "Tristram likes her, and so does Betty."