Thus then I reasoned with myself, but only arrived at remembering that the viscount and Madam Heliodora were confident each in the other’s constancy, and might look forward to a time when this should be rewarded, which I might not do. And so, little comforted, to bed, resolving to speak with Dorothy on the morrow. And in the morning, being purposed not to suffer her to escape me, I laid wait for her on the stairs, when she come down with a great posy of dry lavender in her hand, intended, as I suppose, for some use in her household economy, and begged of her to come with me into the garden. And this entreaty she granted (though not without some alarm, as it seemed to me), and tying quickly a great straw hat over her cap, she threw a scarf about her shoulders, and joined me, when we walked along the terrace-walks in the pleasure-garden. Now the night had been extreme boisterous, and the wind had torn from the trees the few fading leaves that were left them, so that they lay about our feet golden and brown and red, or fluttered feebly upon the grass lawn.
“Sure this is a picture of my life,” says I, looking upon ’em; “a stormy dawn, ending in desolation, and more storms to come.”
“Nay, cousin,” says Dorothy, “you have tarried so long in the Indies that you have forgot your English weather-wisdom. By the tokens of the sky I prophesy a fair day and a calm sunset.”
“Be it so,” said I. “The omen is yours, cousin, and I am glad on’t, though the compassing your happiness may mean my further undoing.”
“You speak in riddles, cousin,” says she, looking at me with some indignation.
“I hope,” says I, “that my cousin Dorothy believes that I set her happiness above my own.”
“And I hope,” says she, “that my cousin Ned don’t think so meanly of me as to believe that I would buy my happiness at the cost of his.”
“Alas, Doll!” says I, “you would not, but it an’t any longer in your power to buy or refuse. And this very matter is’t that I would fain treat with you this morning. I had been better pleased to have settled it all to your liking without troubling you thereabout, but all your friends do show ’emselves so prodigious tender of your punctilio that they will none of ’em tell me that which ’tis needful for me to know. I ask your pardon beforehand, cousin, if I offend you in this straightforward dealing, in spite of all my precaution.”
“Pray tell me your meaning, cousin Ned,” says she, as though perplexed.
“I am told, cousin,” said I, “that there’s a certain gentleman addressing you, in whose suit your heart is deeply engaged. Pray pardon my roughness” (for she seemed to be about to say somewhat, but her face was turned away from me and I could not see it, wherefore I did continue), “but sure you must know that I desire above all things your good, and would fain see you happy with this gentleman, though it were to prove my own perpetual misery.”