“Then, if your heart does, why not your hand?”
“My only reason was on account of you—on account of a question. I have something to tell you—”
“But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my worldly convenience also?”
“O yes; if it is for your happiness and worldly convenience. But my life before I came here—I want—”
“Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness. If I have a very large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable as a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in the country. So please—please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of the feeling that you will stand in my way.”
“But my history. I want you to know it—you must let me tell you—you will not like me so well!”
“Tell it if you wish to, dearest. This precious history then. Yes, I was born at so and so, Anno Domini—”
“I was born at Marlott,” she said, catching at his words as a help, lightly as they were spoken. “And I grew up there. And I was in the Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness, and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should be one. But there was trouble in my family; father was not very industrious, and he drank a little.”
“Yes, yes. Poor child! Nothing new.” He pressed her more closely to his side.
“And then—there is something very unusual about it—about me. I—I was—”