A few moments' silence ensued, when the weeping girl lifted her head, and looked him in the face with eyes, though filled with tears, full of love's tenderest expression.
"I still confide in my father, Mr. Wilkinson," was her answer.
"Then I would see your father to-night."
Instantly Constance glided from the room, and in a few minutes her father came down into the parlour. A long conference ensued; and then the mother was sent for, and finally Constance again. Mr. Wilkinson made offers of marriage, which, being accepted, he urged an immediate consummation. Delay was asked, but he was so earnest, that all parties agreed that the wedding should take place in three days.
In three days the rite was said, and Wilkinson, one of the most prosperous young merchants of Philadelphia, left for New York with his happy bride. A week soon glided away, at the end of which time they returned.
"Where are we going?" Constance asked, as they entered a carriage on landing from the steamboat.
"To our own house, of course!" was her husband's reply.
"You didn't tell me that you had taken a house, and furnished it."
"Didn't I? Well, that is something of an oversight. But you hardly thought that I was so simple as to catch a bird without having a cage first provided for it."
"You had but little time to get the cage," thought Constance, but she did not utter the thought.