"Edith!"—and she looked inquiringly, while a slight flush of the cheek and kindling of the eye in him followed the utterance of the single word by her, and accompanied his reply.
"Yes, Edith—Edith Colleton, Lucy, is the name of my cousin, and the relationship will soon be something closer between us. You will love her, and she, I know, will love you as a sister, and as the preserver of one so very humble as myself. It was a night of danger when you first heard her name, and saw her features; and when you and she will converse over that night and its events, I feel satisfied that it will bring you both only the closer to one another."
"We will not talk of it farther, Mr. Colleton—I would not willingly hear of it again. It is enough that you are now free from all such danger—enough that all things promise well for the future. Let not any thought of past evil, or of risk successfully encountered, obscure the prospect—let no thought of me produce an emotion, hostile, even for a moment, to your peace."
"And why should you think, my sweet girl, and with an air of such profound sorrow, that such a thought must be productive of such an emotion. Why should the circumstances so happily terminating, though perilous at first, necessarily bring sorrow with remembrance. Surely you are now but exhibiting the sometimes coy perversity which is ascribed to your sex. You are now, in a moment of calm, but assuming those winning playfulnesses of a sex, conscious of charm and power, which, in a time of danger, your more masculine thought had rejected as unbecoming. You forget, Lucy, that I have you in charge—that you are now my sister—that my promise to your departed uncle, not less than my own desire to that effect, makes me your guardian for the future—and that I am now come, hopeful of success, to take you with me to my own country, and to bring you acquainted with her—(I must keep no secret from you, who are my sister)—who has my heart—who—but you are sick, Lucy. What means this emotion?"
"Nothing, nothing, Mr. Colleton. A momentary weakness from my late indisposition—it will soon be over. Indeed, I am already well. Go on, sir—go on!"
"Lucy, why these titles? Why such formality? Speak to me as if I were the new friend, at least, if you will not behold in me an old one. I have received too much good service from you to permit of this constraint. Call me Ralph—or Colleton—or—or—nay, look not so coldly—why not call me your brother?"
"Brother—brother be it then, Ralph Colleton—brother—brother. God knows, I need a brother now!" and the ice of her manner was thawed quickly by his appeal, in which her accurate sense, sufficiently unclouded usually by her feelings, though themselves at all times strong, discovered only the honest earnestness of truth.
"Ah, now, you look—and now you are indeed my sister. Hear me, then, Lucy, and listen to all my plans. You have not seen Edith—my Edith now—you must be her sister too. She is now, or will be soon, something nearer to me than a sister—she is something dearer already. We shall immediately return to Carolina, and you will go along with us."
"It may not be, Ralph—I have determined otherwise. I will be your sister—as truly so as sister possibly could be—but I can not go with you. I have made other arrangements."
The youth looked up in astonishment. The manner of the maiden was very resolute, and he knew not what to understand. She proceeded, as she saw his amazement:—