Oh—how much there was to fill her mind with many thoughts! Looking back to what she had been even an hour ago, and then assuring herself with infinite delight of the certain happiness of her present position, she told herself that all the world had been altered to her within that short space. As for loving him;—there was no doubt about that! Now she could own to herself that she had long since loved him, even when she thought that he might probably take that other girl as his wife. That she should love him—was it not a matter of course, he being what he was? But that he should love her—that, that was the marvel! But he did. She need not doubt that. She could remember distinctly each word of assurance that he had spoken to her. “I ask you, because with all my heart I love you.” “May I not say my girl;—and, if my girl, then my wife?” “I do not think that I like poor things; but I like you.” No. If she were regarded by him as good enough to be his wife then she would certainly never call herself a poor thing again.
In her troubles and her poverty—especially in her solitude, she had often thought of that other older man who had wanted to make her his wife—sometimes almost with regret. There would have been duties for her and a home, and a mode of life more fitting to her feminine nature than this solitary tedious existence. And there would have been something for her to love, some human being on whom to spend her human solicitude and sympathies. She had leagued herself with Sophy Wilson, and she had been true to the bond; but it had had in it but little satisfaction. The other life, she had sometimes thought, would have been better. But she had never loved the man, and could not have loved him as a husband should, she thought, be loved by his wife. She had done what was right in refusing the good things which he had offered her—and now she was rewarded! Now had come to her the bliss of which she had dreamed, that of belonging to a man to whom she felt that she was bound by all the chords of her heart. Then she repeated his name to herself—Abraham Hall, and tried in a lowest whisper the sound of that other name—Lucy Hall. And she opened her arms wide as she sat upon the chair as though in that way she could take his child to her bosom.
She had been sitting so nearly an hour when she started up suddenly and again put on her old hat and hurried off towards her office. She felt now that as regarded her clothes she did not care about herself. There was a paradise prepared for her so dear and so near that the present was made quite bright by merely being the short path to such a future. But for his sake she cared. As belonging to him she would fain, had it been possible, not have shown herself in a garb unfitting for his wife. Everything about him had always been decent, fitting, and serviceable! Well! It was his own doing. He had chosen her as she was. She would not run in debt to make herself fit for his notice, because such debts would have been debts to be paid by him. But if she could squeeze from her food what should supply her with garments fit at any rate to stand with him at the altar it should be done.
Then, as she hurried on to the office, she remembered what he had said about money. No! She would not have his money till it was hers of right. Then with what perfect satisfaction would she take from him whatever he pleased to give her, and how hard would she work for him in order that he might never feel that he had given her his good things for nothing!
It was five o’clock before she was at the office, and she had promised to be back in the lodgings at six, to get for him his tea. It was quite out of the question that she should work today. “The truth is, ma’am,” she said to the female superintendent, “I have received and accepted an offer of marriage this afternoon. He is going out of town tonight, and I want to be with him before he goes.” This is a plea against which official rigour cannot prevail. I remember once when a young man applied to a saturnine pundit who ruled matters in a certain office for leave of absence for a month to get married. “To get married!” said the saturnine pundit. “Poor fellow! But you must have the leave.” The lady at the telegraph office was no doubt less caustic, and dismissed our Lucy for the day with congratulations rather than pity.
She was back at the lodging before her lover, and had borrowed the little back parlour from Mrs. Green, and had spread the tea-things, and herself made the toast in the kitchen before he came. “There’s something I suppose more nor friendship betwixt you and Mr. Hall, and better,” said the landlady smiling. “A great deal better, Mrs. Green,” Lucy had replied, with her
