"Because I can't help myself," Melissa answered, in a quivering voice. "I should like—I should like to live always in England."
"Have you any special preference for any particular town?" Bernard asked, moving closer to her—though, to be sure, he was very, very near already.
"N—no; n—none in particular," Melissa stammered out, faintly, half sidling away from him.
"Not Cambridge, for example?" Bernard asked, with a deep gulp and an audible effort.
I felt it would be unpardonable for me to hear any more. I had heard already many things not intended for me. I sneaked off, unperceived, and left those two alone to complete that conversation.
Half an hour later—it was a calm, moonlight night—Bernard rushed down eagerly into the saloon to find us. "Father and mother," he said, with a burst, "I want you up on deck for just ten minutes. There's something up there I should like so much to show you."
"Not whales?" I asked, hypocritically, suppressing a smile.
"No, not whales," he replied; "something much more interesting."
We followed him blindly, Lucy much in doubt what the thing might be, and I much in wonder, after Mrs. Wade's letter, how Lucy might take it.
At the top of the companion—ladder Melissa stood waiting for us, demure, but subdued, with a still timider look than ever upon that sweet, shrinking, small face of hers. Her heart beat hard, I could see by the movement of her bodice, and her breath came and went; but she stood there like a dove, in her dove-coloured travelling dress.