"Honor, do you love me now, think you, just as you would have loved your own father, had he lived?"
Clasping her hands in an attitude of thoughtful attention, she answered,
"Have you had any reason to doubt it, my more than father?—have I, in word or deed, ever caused the slightest shade of disappointment to darken your brow, that you deem this question necessary?"
"Tis none of these, my little one," he answered tenderly, "but your words reassure me, and I like to hear you say them"—then changing his tone suddenly, to one of pleading enquiry, he asked. "If I were to wish you to do me a great favor, Honor, which involved the sacrifice of your own feelings, and the risk of your future happiness, but that, I did so, merely on account of my great love for you, do you think, you could be so unselfish, so grand, as to slight every other consideration for mine, and grant me my wild wish?"
With a little wistful, puzzled look on her face, she answered "There is no word of binding promise, that it is possible for my lips to utter, nor no deed bespoken before its committal, by your request or command, that you may not consider, as wholly yours beforehand, for the confidence that you have deserved I should place in you, assures me, that you will ask nothing of me, which is not thoroughly consistent with my welfare and happiness."
"What a noble creature you are!" the old man exclaimed faintly, then turning, and looking her tenderly in the face, he said "I understand, then, that very soon, when I make a request of you, you will not deny me the extreme gratification of giving my request due consideration?"
Impulsively, frankly, innocently, Honor thrust her little hands into those of her guardian, and smiling half sadly, said "A promise is a promise—there is mine."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"Hark! the word by Christmas spoken,
Let the sword of wrath be broken,
Let the wrath of battle cease,
Christmas hath no word but—Peace"
Christmas day was unusually gloomy at Mr Rayne's this year, but it was quite a voluntary stillness, that reigned there; no one felt gay, or happy, while the loved master of the house was so low. Jean d'Alberg stole around in velvet slippers, and the others scarcely moved at all, as for Honor, she lived in the boudoir below stairs lying awake on the cosy lounge, dreaming all sorts of day dreams, while she awaited the end of this painful interruption in their domestic happiness.