“My father! my father!”
“Oh! I entreat you, do not let Sir Henry stand in the way of your plighted troth. Think—think of me! Loving you with my whole heart, yet condemned to live separated from you—Helen, it is cruel. No, no! Let the holy sacrament of matrimony make us one; then, if circumstances still force us asunder, it will be most consoling to know that the separation is only for a brief space. I am sure God will soften your father’s heart towards me, and that ere long he will call me son. O Helen! answer. Do not refuse my petition.”
While her lover was speaking Helen remembered the dream she had had, and the ingenious method which had occurred to her in that dream for overcoming her parent’s aversion to the young man. At the same time her heart whispered a thousand tender things, such as only a heart deeply in love can ever whisper; and now when Berkeley ended his supplication all fear of her father had vanished from her mind, and, looking up at him, she said:
“Dear William, I consent; let it be as you wish.”
“My own dear girl!” cried Berkeley. “And now, my darling, you have only to name the happy day. When shall it be?”
“Well, let us be wedded to-morrow. I will tell Father McElroy our whole story; when he hears it I am certain he will marry us.”
And Helen was right. The wise, kind-hearted priest, after lending an attentive ear to what she narrated to him early the next day, agreed to perform the ceremony forthwith. Indeed, there was nothing Father McElroy liked better than to see young folks united in wedlock, and whenever a young couple announced to him that they were betrothed he always clapped his hands and cried: “Good! good! My children, you could not bring me better news.”
The wedding was as private as possible. Then Helen abode a fortnight at St. Joseph’s—a blissful fortnight—after which she went back to her father, who, when he saw her coming towards him, exclaimed:
“The jaunt has done the child a world of good! She needed a change of air.”
Whereupon Sir Henry’s friend answered: