“And how is our dear Charlotte, miss? I trust her spirits are pretty fair? Was you with her until just now? Did you ever hear of a young woman’s behaving so strangely? Why, positively, I am forbid to speak about this—this charming event until the ceremony’s over!”
Admiring the subjection to which Miss Hamlin had reduced her relations, and their efforts to release themselves from her yoke, I succeeded at last in finding Mr Hurstwood, who was standing apart from the rest of the company, and signified to him that I bore a message from Miss Hamlin. With the greatest eagerness imaginable he desired to know where he might attend me, and I led him out into the varanda, and so in at the window of the closet where Miss was sitting among her uncle’s boots. You may guess, Amelia, that I was excessively gratified to remark that the splendour of her appearance so disconcerted him that he could not utter a word (for indeed, in figure and air, she is quite the finest woman I ever saw, when she chooses to assume the dignity that sits so well upon her), but only bow, with his hand on his heart.
“Pray, sir,” says his mistress, striving hard for her old rallying tone, “do you know why I have sent for you this evening?”
“Why, madam,” he said, finding his tongue, “I’ll confess that I did experience a hope that you might be about to name the day which is to make me the happiest of men, but now that I behold you, I can but wonder at the goodness that grants me even the distant prospect of calling so lovely and majestic a creature mine.”
“I see,” said Miss Hamlin. “You are contented with your present situation then, sir, since the prospect is so distant?”
“No, indeed, madam. Endure it I must, since anything else would be so far beyond my deserts, but I defy any man to call me contented.”
“But, sir, contentment is a virtue. Sure it would be wrong in me to deprive you of so good a chance of acquiring it?”
“Ah, madam, if there was any mercy for me in your heart when you called me here, don’t do yourself such an injustice as to feign that you summoned me only to torment me.”
“Why, then, I won’t, sir. If you’ll take me to-night, you shall have me; if not, you shan’t have me at all.”
“Do you look for me to hesitate, madam? Though my mind be reeling under this unexpected happiness, it is sufficiently sound not to refuse it. Dear madam, the happiest man in India is at your feet at this moment.”