“Oh, Isabel,” said Lucy Rushton, bursting into her cousin’s room, some two years from the scenes we have recorded, “what am I to do? Pray advise me, for you always know every thing.”
“Not quite as wise as that, dear, but what am I to do for you?”
“Oh, Emily Bradford has been proposed for by young Lewis, and aunt, who sees only his wealth and connections, is crazy for the match. Emily really loves him devotedly; and what am I to do, knowing how near he once came to downright intemperance? Is it my duty, or is it not, to tell aunt? It has no effect on Emily, and, besides, he confessed it all to her when he proposed.”
“And what does she say?”
“Why, it’s your fault, after all, for she quotes a story you told that same night I heard about his folly. You told me that, too. Well, he declares he has not drank a glass of wine since then, and never will again. Particularly if he has Emily for his guiding angel, I suppose, and all that sort of thing. And she believes him, of course.”
“Well, ‘of course’—don’t say it so despairingly; why not? I do, most assuredly. I might perhaps have distrusted the reformation if it had been solely on Emily’s account, a pledge made to gain her, but if I am not very much mistaken, I think I can trace their attachment to that same eventful night, but I am very certain he did not declare himself until quite recently.”
“So I am to let Emily run the risk?”
“Yes, if she chooses it; though I do not think there is much. I should have no hesitation to marry Lewis if I loved him. Emily is a thoughtful, sensible girl. She does not act without judgment, and she is just the woman to be the wife of an impulsive, generous man like Lewis. Sufficient time has elapsed to try his principles, and her companionship will strengthen them.”
And so it proved, for there are now few happier homes than the cheerful, hospitable household over which Emily Lewis presides. Isabel Gray is always a favorite guest, and Robert predicts that she will never marry. It may prove so, for she is not of those who would sacrifice herself for fortune, or give her hand to any man she did not thoroughly respect and sympathise with, to escape that really very tolerable fate—becoming an old maid.