"Well," said Adelaide, when at length she gained admission, and had taken the letter from her sister's unresisting hand, "I think you have kept the courier waiting long enough, and 'tis not a long answer the poor man wants, since one word is all he asks."
"What will my father say, Adelaide?"
"The old marquis was my father's most dearly loved friend. He will accept the son for the father's sake; the question is, will you accept him?"
"I have never thought of marrying at all."
"No, but you admire this gentleman. Your eyes, your voice betray you. I shall send him the one word he asks for so prettily."
"You will do no such thing;" but Adelaide had glided from the room, and shortly after Eugene set forth with the courier in quest of his friend, whom he finally succeeded in persuading to return with him, without awaiting a response to his missive.
It is not our intention to present to our readers the details of the scenes that followed within the next few weeks; we leave to their more vivid imaginations to fancy the arguments by which M. de Villeneuve won the consent of his ideal lady. A few days more, and he was travelling to London with Eugene to obtain the formal consent of Mr. Godfrey.
"Is that the secret of Hester's dejection?" thought the father, and that thought made his consent the readier.
"But how can you, so staunch a member of the church, resolve to marry a heretic?"
"Hester it no heretic," replied the marquis.