“I came home from Thistlewood in love; but I never meant to ask her to be my wife yet awhile. My feelings overpowered me this morning and out came everything.”
“And does she love you, Charlie?”
“I don’t suppose she would accept me if she didn’t.”
“To be sure she wouldn’t. Of course she loves you. Well, well, this is cheering news after our late troubles. That old scheme of mine was quite pushed out of my mind by this elopement. I have been able to think of nothing else. Now at all events there will be one marriage after my heart. Has she written to Dick yet about it?”
“Why, you see, I only proposed to her this morning.”
“True, I forgot. You had better go to her. We can very well do without you just now—far better than she can. Upon my word,” he cried, grasping my hand, “your news is as good as a cordial. It throws quite a bright light on the future, and I can see my way now as I never saw it before. But I’ll not keep you. Get away to Grove End. We’ll talk the thing over this evening.”
I left him, but stopped a moment to ask Curling, who was at his desk, how he and Conny felt after the wedding.
“Very well thank you, Mr. Hargrave,” he replied: “but as I told your uncle, I shall go to my grave protesting that it was entirely superfluous.”
“No, no! come, you must confess that you feel more comfortable now that you have been married correctly.”
“Not a bit,” he said, “and whilst I live I shall always say it was superfluous.”