"But all the forms have been gone through——"
She lay silent and meditative for some time, and then she said—
"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; but I should like to alter all my plans. You know the betrothals they have in French stories and in the operas: I should like to have a betrothal, Will, and all you will have to get for me is a big sheet of paper and a marriage-ring."
How eagerly he accepted the offer! This pretty notion of hers, which was obviously only meant to please a passing whim, was so much more grateful to him than the marriage proposal, with its black background:
"We will have it at once, Dove; and I think you are so well that you might drink a little champagne with us to grace the ceremony. Then I shall be able to call you my wife all the same, and you shall wear the wedding-ring; and then, you know, we can have the white horses and the carriages afterwards. But I am afraid the betrothal contract will be frightfully inaccurate; I don't know the terms——"
"Get a sheet of paper, Will, and I will tell you what to write down."
He got the paper, and, at her dictation, wrote down the following words—
"We two, loving each other very dearly, write our names underneath in token that we have become husband and wife, and as a pledge of our constant love."
She smiled faintly when he placed the writing before her, and then she leant back on the pillow, with a satisfied air. Mrs. Anerley now came into the room, and Will, obeying some further commands, went off to see whether Annie Brunel was yet in her old lodgings, and also to purchase a wedding-ring for the ceremony on which Dove had set her heart.
Miss Brunel's landlady told Will that her lady-lodger would probably return the next day, with which piece of information he returned. He also showed Dove the wedding-ring; and she placed it on her finger, and kept it there.