“Entirely so. Three days ago I should have laughed at the idea of being my uncle’s heir: now they tell me that I am worth eleven thousand a year.”
“It sounds like a fairy tale,” cried Edith. “What a strange man your uncle must have been!”
“When the will was read,” returned Lionel, “my first thought was of you. I said to myself, ‘Has Edith forgotten me? Has she given me up? Am I too late?’ I trembled to think what the answer might be. Now I tremble no longer.”
“It is sweet, Lionel, to have you here, and to know that you are my own again,” replied Edith. “But how much sweeter it would have been if you had come to me when you were poor, and had trusted everything to my love!”
A week passed away, each day of which saw Lionel Dering a visitor in Roehampton Terrace. Edith and he were much together. It was the happiest time they had ever known. All the freshness of their recent meeting was still upon them; besides which, their long separation had taught them to value each other more, perhaps, than they would have done, had everything gone smoothly with them from the first. The weather, for an English winter, was brilliant, and they rode out every morning into the country. Of an evening, Edith, Lionel, and Mrs. Garside had the drawing-room all to themselves; and although an “exposition of sleep” generally came over the elder lady after dinner, the young people never seemed to miss her society, nor were they ever heard to complain that the time hung heavily on their hands.
They were very happy. They had so much to tell each other about the past—so many golden daydreams to weave of what they would do in the future! Edith could never hear enough about Lionel’s life at Gatehouse Farm, and about his adventure with Tom Bristow; while Lionel found himself evincing a quite novel interest in the well-being of sundry ragged-schools, homes for destitute children, and other philanthropic schemes of whose very existence he had been in utter ignorance only a few days before.
But everything must come to an end, and after a time there came a summons from Mr. Perrins. Lionel was wanted down at Park Newton. The old lawyer could go on no longer without him. So Edith and he were compelled to bid each other farewell for a week or two. Meanwhile, the post was to be the daily medium for the interchange of their vows and messages.
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST DAYS AT PARK NEWTON.
The dining-room at Park Newton. A cosy little table, with covers set for two people, was drawn up near the fire. The evening was cold and frosty. The wax-candles were lighted, the logs on the hearth burned cheerily. A large Indian screen shut in this end of the room from the wilderness of gloom and desolation beyond; for the dining-room at Park Newton would accommodate fifty or sixty guests with ease. The clock on the mantelpiece pointed to ten minutes past seven. Lionel Dering was growing impatient.
“Perrins is generally punctuality itself,” he said. “What can have detained him? I hope he is not ill.”