“I have disturbed and troubled you, Edith,” the young man said after awhile, “but I could not help it. There must be a beginning to everything, and I had to make a beginning of this. I don’t expect you to treat it seriously now, but I want you to think of it. It seemed right that I should speak, or some one else might speak while I am gone, and take you away from me.”
“But I should never think of having any one else, if you want me,” she replied with perfect conviction. “I may not ever marry at all, but, if I do, you will have the first chance.”
Dick Rowan’s whole face caught fire. “Why, darling!” he exclaimed joyfully, “do you mean that?”
She was astonished and pleased at the effect of her words, “Truly,” she answered. “You know very little of me if you do not know that I have always considered myself to belong more to you than to any one else.”
They had now reached Miss Clinton’s door, and there they parted without more words.
But Edith’s indecision was of shorter duration than either she or her friend had anticipated. The subject
was so foreign to her thoughts that at first she had comprehended nothing, and had received Dick Rowan’s avowal in a most childish manner. But a few hours’ consideration had set the whole in a different light. She went down to Hester’s as soon as dinner was over, and asked for her aunt. Mrs. Yorke was in her own room, writing a letter, and she only glanced up with a smile as her niece entered.
“All well at Miss Clinton’s?” she asked, folding the letter.
“Yes, very well.”
“Anything new?”