"He says we had better settle when it is to be. You know I am of age in December, and he thinks of after Christmas; and do you know he wants it to be on the day but one after the Epiphany? because he says--that funny old Hugh!--that it is your birthday; or if it isn't, that it ought to be; and insists on it. However, he has set his mind on it. He wanted to come and ask you, for I said I would not have it fixed until you had been asked. And then I thought I would rather come myself."
The kind eyes were looking at me again, just a little anxiously, I thought. For a moment there seemed to be a choking sensation in my throat. I turned my head away, and the evening bird sang out once more, clear and silvery in the calm still air,
"Loyal je serai durant la vie."
"Listen, Ada; do you hear what the nightingale is singing? She is bidding me say 'God bless you both!' Let it be when Hugh thinks best. Go and tell him so."
She took my hand and pressed it to her lips; there was a warm tear on it when she let it go. I turned aside and walked away for a little while by myself. Then I went back to them, and we left the gardens.
Hugh and I walked home together that night; and as we parted at his door he told me all was settled between him and Ada, very gently, very softly, as if he were breaking some news to me. There was no need. I bade him God speed with my cheeriest voice, and told him the heartfelt truth--that to no other man would I have trusted her with such perfect trust.
I had happy letters from them both whilst I was abroad. Hugh had taken a very pretty house some ten miles from town; workmen were busily engaged in alterations, fittings-up, and decorations, whilst he and Ada were full of the furniture and all those numerous etceteras which help to make the home such a one as should be prepared to receive a fair young bride. Mr. Thorneley had behaved very liberally to his nephew, and given him carte blanche in the matter of the expenditure; if his nature were capable of loving any human being, I think he was fond of Hugh Atherton, and I am quite sure that Hugh, in his generous oversight of all that must have jarred upon and shocked his mind, was sincerely and gratefully attached to his uncle, who, he often said to me, had acted a father's part by him. Thus, amidst much sunshine and little shade, all was hastening on toward the consummation of their union, and as the new year tided round it was to find them man and wife.
And now I must relate a circumstance which happened about a fortnight before I started for the Continent. I had been dining at the house of my married sister, who lived at Highgate. She was one of those ladies who are very fond of collecting about them the heterogeneous society of all the nondescripts, hangers-on, and adventurers who are only too willing to frequent the houses of those gifted with a taste for such companionship. With good-nature verging, I often told her, on absolute idiotcy, she could not be made to see how eccentricity of manner, person, or conversation was often but the veil thrown over a character too stained or doubtful to be revealed in its proper light. It is true that in many cases her hospitality was rewarded; equally true that in the majority it was abused; and my brother-in-law, good man, suffered severely for it in the matter of his pocket.
To return: amongst the various guests I met at dinner that evening was one man who strangely riveted my attention, aided by the feeling so well known to most people, that I had somewhere or other seen him before, but in other guise, and when a much younger man. His manner was quiet and reserved, but scarcely gentlemanlike; and I noticed that in many of the little convenances of society he was quite at a loss. I judged him to be about fifty or fifty-five years of age, his hair was grey, and he wore a thick beard and moustache; at first I took him for a foreigner until I heard him speak, and then I perceived the broad Irish accent betraying his nationality in a most unmistakable manner.