“What is it, Philip?” She turned pale as she spoke, but looked him full in the face.
“Are you engaged to that parson?” She went on looking at him, but did not answer a word. “Are you going to marry him? I have a right to ask.” Then she shook her head. “You certainly are not?” Now as he spoke his voice was changed, and the frown had vanished. Again she shook her head. Then he got hold of her hand, and she left her hand with him, not thinking of him as other than a brother. “I am so glad. I detest that man.”
“Oh, Philip; he is very good!”
“I do not care twopence for his goodness. You are quite sure?” Now she nodded her head. “It would have been most awful, and would have made me miserable; miserable. Of course, my mother is the best woman in the world; but why can’t she let people alone to find husbands and wives for themselves?” There was a slight frown, and then with a visible effort he completed his speech. “Bessy, you have grown to be the loveliest woman that ever I looked upon.”
She withdrew her hand very suddenly. “Philip, you should not say such a thing as that.”
“Why not, if I think it?”
“People should never say anything to anybody about themselves.”
“Shouldn’t they?”
“You know what I mean. It is not nice. It’s the sort of stuff which people who ain’t ladies and gentlemen put into books.”
“I should have thought I might say anything.”
“So you may; and of course you are different. But there are things that are so disagreeable!”
“And I am one of them?”
“No, Philip, you are the truest and best of brothers.”
“At any rate you won’t—” Then he paused.
“No, I won’t.”
“That’s a promise to your best and dearest brother?” She nodded her head again, and he was satisfied.
He went away, and when he returned to Launay at the end of four months he found that things were not going on pleasantly at the Park. Mr. Morrison had been refused, with a positive assurance from the young lady that she would never change her mind, and Mrs. Miles had become more stern than ever in the performance of her duty to her family.
III
How Bessy Pryor Came to Love the Heir of Launay
Matters became very unpleasant at the Park soon after Philip went away. There had been something in his manner as he left, and a silence in regard to him on Bessy’s part, which created, not at first surprise, but uneasiness in the mind of Mrs. Miles. Bessy hardly mentioned his name, and Mrs. Miles knew enough of the world to feel that such restraint must have a cause. It would have been natural for a girl so circumstanced to have been full of Philip and his botany. Feeling this she instigated the parson to renewed attempts; but the parson had to tell her that there was no chance for him. “What has she said?” asked Mrs. Miles.
“That it can never be.”
“But it shall be,” said Mrs. Miles, stirred on this occasion to an assertion of the obstinacy which was in her nature. Then there was a most unpleasant scene between the old lady and her dependent. “What is it that you expect?” she asked.
“Expect, aunt!” Bessy had been instructed to call Mrs. Miles her aunt.
“What do you think is to be done for you?”
“Done for me! You have done everything. May I not stay with you?” Then Mrs. Miles gave utterance to a very long lecture, in which many things were explained to Bessy. Bessy’s position was said to be one very peculiar in its nature. Were Mrs. Miles to die there would be no home for her. She could not hope to find a home in Philip’s house as a real sister might have done. Everybody loved her because she had been good and gracious, but it was her duty to marry—especially her duty—so that there might be no future difficulty. Mr. Morrison was exactly the man that such, a girl as Bessy ought to want as a husband. Bessy through her tears declared that she didn’t want any husband, and that she certainly did not want Mr. Morrison.
“Has Philip said anything?” asked the imprudent old woman. Then Bessy was silent. “What has Philip said to you?”
“I told him, when he asked, that I should never marry Mr. Morrison.” Then it was—in that very moment—that Mrs. Miles in truth suspected the blow that was to fall upon her; and in that same moment she resolved that, let the pain be what it might to any or all of them, she would do her duty by her family.
“Yes,” she said to herself, as she sat alone in the unadorned, unattractive sanctity of her own bedroom, “I will do my duty at any rate now.” With deep remorse she acknowledged to herself that she had been remiss. For a moment her anger was very bitter. She had warmed a reptile in her bosom. The very words came to her thoughts, though they were not pronounced. But the words were at once rejected. The girl had been no reptile. The girl had been true. The girl had been as sweet a girl as had ever brightened the hearth of an old woman. She acknowledged so much to herself even in this moment of her agony. But not the less would she do her duty by the family of the Launays. Let the girl do what she might, she must be sent away—got rid of—sacrificed in any way rather than that Philip should be allowed to make himself a fool.
When for a couple of days she had turned it all in her mind she did not believe that there was as yet any understanding between the girl and Philip. But still she was sure that the danger existed. Not only had the girl refused her destined husband—just such a man as such a
