"O," said she, "she does not want persuading; she is willing enough, and I will run to papa and mamma and ask their leave, and then Lucilla will go and glad: won't you, Lucilla?"

So saying, she sprang out of my arms, and ran out of the room; Lucilla would have followed and prevented her. I respectfully detained her. How could I neglect such an opportunity? Such an opening as the sweet prattler had given me it was impossible to overlook. The impulse was too powerful to be resisted; I gently replaced her on her seat, and in language, which, if it did any justice to my feelings, was the most ardent, tender, and respectful, poured out my whole heart. I believe my words were incoherent; I am sure they were sincere.

She was evidently distressed. Her emotion prevented her replying. But it was the emotion of surprise, not of resentment. Her confusion bore no symptoms of displeasure. Blushing and hesitating, she at last said: "My father, sir--my mother." Here her voice failed her. I recollected with joy that on the application of Lord Staunton she had allowed of no such reference, nay, she had forbidden it.

"I take your reference joyfully," said I, "only tell me that if I am so happy as to obtain their consent, you will not withhold yours." She ventured to raise her timid eyes to mine, and her modest but expressive look encouraged me almost as much as any words could have done.

At that moment the door opened, and in came Sir John with the other drawing of the conservatory in his hand. After having examined us both with his keen, critical eye; "Well, Miss Stanley," said he, with a look and tone which had more meaning than she could well stand, "here is the other drawing. As you look as if you had been _calmly_ examining the first, you will now give me your _cool, deliberate_ opinion of the merits of both." He had the cruelty to lay so much stress on the words, cool, calm, and deliberate, and to p.r.o.nounce them in so arch a manner, and so ironical a tone, as clearly showed, he read in her countenance that no epithets could possibly have been so ill applied.

Lady Belfield came in immediately after. "Well, Caroline," said he, with a significant glance, "Miss Stanley has deeply considered the subject since you went; I never saw her look more interested about any thing. I don't think she is dissatisfied on the whole. General approbation is all she now expresses. She will have time to spy out faults hereafter: she sees none at present. All is beauty, grace, and proportion."

As if this was not enough, in ran Celia quite out of breath--"Oh, Lucilla," cried she, "papa and mamma won't let you go with Charles, though I told them you begged and prayed to go."

Lucilla, the pink of whose cheeks was become crimson, said angrily, "How Celia! what do you mean?"

"Oh, no," replied the child, "I mean to say that _I_ begged and prayed, and I thought you looked as if you would like to go, though Charles did not ask you, and so I told papa."

This was too much. The Belfields laughed outright; but Lady Belfield had the charity to take Lucilla's hand, saying, "Come into my dressing-room, my dear, and let us settle this conservatory business. This prattling child will never let us get on." Miss Stanley followed, her face glowing with impatience. Celia, whom I detained, called after her, "Papa only said there was not room in the curricle for three; but if it is only a little way, I am sure we could sit, could we not, Lucilla?" Lucilla was now happily out of hearing.

Though I was hurt that her delicacy had suffered so much, yet I own I hugged the little innocent author of this confusion with additional fondness. Sir John's raillery, now that Lucilla could be no longer pained by it, was cordially received, or rather I was inattentive to every object but the one of which my heart was full. To be heard, to be accepted, though tacitly, to be referred to parents who I knew had no will but hers,

Was such a sacred and homefelt delight, Such sober certainty of waking bliss As I ne'er felt till now.

During the remainder of the day I found no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Stanley. Always frank and cheerful, he neither avoided nor sought me, but the arrival of company prevented our being thrown together.

Lucilla appeared at dinner as usual: a little graver and more silent, but always unaffected, natural, and delicate. Sir John whispered to me that she had entreated her mother to keep Celia out of the way till this curricle business was a little got out of her head.

CHAPTER XLII.

The next morning, as soon as I thought Mr. Stanley had retreated to his library, I followed him thither. He was busy writing letters. I apologized for my intrusion. He laid his papers aside, and invited me to sit by him.

"You are too good, sir," said I, "to receive with so much kindness a culprit who appears before you ingenuously to acknowledge the infraction of a treaty into which he had the honor of entering with you. I fear that a few days are wanting of my prescribed month. I had resolved to obey you with the most religious scrupulousness; but a circ.u.mstance, trifling in itself, has led almost irresistibly to a declaration, which in obedience to your command I had resolved to postpone. But though it is somewhat premature, I hope, however, you will not condemn my precipitancy. I have ventured to tell your charming daughter how necessary she is to my happiness. She does not reject me. She refers me to her father."

"You have your peace to make with my daughter, I can tell you, sir,"

said Mr. Stanley, looking gravely; "I fear you have mortally offended her."

I was dreadfully alarmed. "You know not how you afflict me, sir," said I: "how have I offended Miss Stanley?"

"Not Miss Stanley," said he, smiling, "but Miss Celia Stanley, who extremely resents having been banished from the drawing-room yesterday evening."

"If Celia's displeasure is all I have to fear, sir, I am most fortunate.

Oh, sir, my happiness, the peace of my future life, is in your hands.

But first tell me you forgive the violation of my promise."

"I am willing to believe, Charles," replied he, "that you kept the spirit of your engagement, though you broke it in the letter; and for an unpremeditated breach of an obligation of this nature, we must not, I believe, be too rigorous. Your conduct since your declaration to me has confirmed the affection which your character had before excited. You were probably surprised and hurt at my cold reception of your proposal, a proposal which gave me a deeper satisfaction than I can express. Yet I was no dissembler in suppressing the pleasure I felt at an address so every way desirable. My dear Charles, I know a little of human nature. I know how susceptible the youthful heart is of impressions. I know how apt these impressions are to be obliterated--a new face, a more advantageous connection--"

"Hold, sir," said I, indignantly interrupting him, "you can not think so meanly of me--you can not rate the son of your friend so low!"

"I am very far indeed," replied he, "from rating you low. I know you abhor mercenary considerations; but I know also that you are a young man, lively, ardent, impressible. I know the rapid effect that leisure, retirement, rural scenes, daily opportunities of seeing a young woman not ugly, of conversing with a young woman not disagreeable, may produce on the heart, or rather on the imagination. I was aware that seeing no other, conversing with no other, none at least that, to speak honestly, I could consider as a fair compet.i.tor, hardly left you an unprejudiced judge of the state of your own heart. I was not sure but that this sort of easy commerce might produce a feeling of complacency which might be mistaken for love. I could not consent that mere accident, mere leisure, the mere circ.u.mstance of being thrown together, should irrevocably entangle either of you. I was desirous of affording you time to see, to know, and to judge. I would not take advantage of your first emotions. I would not take advantage of your friendship for me. I would not take advantage of your feeling ardently, till I had given you time to judge temperately and fairly."

I a.s.sured him I was equally at a loss to express my grat.i.tude for his kindness, and my veneration of his wisdom; and thanked him in terms of affectionate energy.

"My regard for you," said he, "is not of yesterday: I have taken a warm interest in your character and happiness almost ever since you have been in being; and in a way more intimate and personal than you can suspect."

So saying he arose, unlocked the drawer of a cabinet which stood behind him, and took out a large packet of letters. He then resumed his seat, and holding out the direction on the covers asked me if I was acquainted with the hand-writing. A tear involuntarily started into my eye as I exclaimed; "It is the well-known hand of my beloved father."

"Listen to me attentively," resumed he. "You are not ignorant that never were two men more firmly attached by all the ties which ever cemented a Christian friendship than your lamented father and myself. Our early youth was spent in the same studies, the same pleasures, the same society. 'We took sweet counsel together and went to the house of G.o.d as friends.' He condescendingly overlooked my being five or six years younger than himself. After his marriage with your excellent mother, the current of life carried us different ways, but without causing any abatement in the warmth of our attachment.

"I continued to spend one month every year with him at the Priory, till I myself married. You were then not more than three or four years old; and your engaging manners, and sweet temper, laid the foundation of an affection which has not been diminished by time, and the reports of your progress. Sedentary habits on the part of your father, and a rapidly increasing family on mine, kept us stationary at the two extremities of the kingdom. I settled at the Grove, and both as husband and father have been happiest of the happy.

"As soon as Lucilla was born, your father and I, simultaneously, formed a wish that it might be possible to perpetuate our friendship by the future union of our children."

When Mr. Stanley uttered these words, my heart beat so fast, and the agitation of my whole frame was so visible that he paused for a moment, but perceiving that I was all ear, and that I made a silent motion for him to proceed, he went on.

"This was a favorite project with us. We pursued it however with the moderation of men who had a settled sense of the uncertainty of all human things, of human life itself; and with a strong conviction of the probability that our project might never be realized.

"Without too much indulging the illusions of hope, we agreed that there could be no harm in educating our children for each other: in inspiring them with corresponding tastes, similar inclinations, and especially with an exact conformity in their religious views. We never indulged the presumptuous thought of counteracting providential dispensations, of conquering difficulties which time might prove to be inseparable, and, above all, we determined never to be so weak, or so unjust, as to think of compelling their affections. We had both studied the human heart long enough to know that it is a perverse and wayward thing. We were convinced that it would not be dictated to in a matter which involved its dearest interests, we knew that it liked to pick out its own happiness in its own way."

As Mr. Stanley proceeded, my heart melted with grateful love for a father who, in making such a provision for my happiness, had generously left my choice so free. But while my conscience seemed to reproach me as if I had not deserved such tenderness, I rejoiced that my memory had no specific charge to bring against it.

"For all these reasons," continued Mr. Stanley, "we mutually agreed to bury our wishes in our own bosoms; to commit the event to Him by whom all events are governed; never to name you to each other but in a general way; to excite no fict.i.tious liking, to elicit no artificial pa.s.sion, and to kindle neither impatience, curiosity, nor interest.

Nothing more than a friendly family regard was ever manifested, and the names of Charles and Lucilla were never mentioned together.

"In this you have found your advantage. Had my daughter been accustomed to hear you spoken of with any particularity; had she been conscious that any important consequences might have attached to your visit, you would have lost the pleasure of seeing her in her native simplicity of character. Undesigning and artless I trust she would have been under any circ.u.mstances, but to have been unreserved and open would have been scarcely possible; nor might you, my dear Charles, with your strong sense of filial piety, have been able exactly to discriminate how much of your attachment was choice, how much was duty. The awkwardness of restraint would have diminished the pleasure of intercourse to both.

"Knowing that the childish brother and sister sort of intimacy was not the most promising mode for the development of your mutual sentiments, we agreed that you should not meet till within a year or two of the period when it would be proper that the union, if ever, might take place.

"We were neither of us of an age or character to indulge very romantic ideas of the doctrine of sympathies. Still we saw no reason for excluding such a possibility. If we succeeded, we knew that we were training two beings in a conformity of Christian principles, which, if they did not at once attract affection, would not fail to insure it, should inferior motives first influence your mutual liking. And if it failed, we should each have educated a Christian, who would be likely to carry piety and virtue into two other families. Much good would attend our success, and no possible evil could attend our failure.

"I could show you, I believe, near a hundred letters on each side, of which you were the unconscious subject. Your father, in his last illness, returned all mine, to prevent a premature discovery, knowing how soon his papers would fall into your hands. If it will give you pleasure, you may peruse a correspondence of which, for almost twenty years, you were the little hero. In reading my letters you will make yourself master of the character of Lucilla. You will read the history of her mind; you will mark the unfolding of her faculties, and the progress of her education. In those of your father, you will not be sorry to trace back your own steps."

Here Mr. Stanley making a pause, I bowed my grateful acceptance of his obliging offer. I was afraid to speak, I was almost afraid to breathe, lest I should lose a word of a communication so interesting.

"You now see," resumed Mr. Stanley, "why you were sent to Edinburg.

Cambridge and Oxford were too near London, and of course too near Hampshire, to have maintained the necessary separation. As soon as you left the University, your father proposed accompanying you on a visit to the Grove. Like fond parents, we had prepared each other to expect to see a being just such a one as each would have wished for the companion of his child.

"This was to be merely a visit of experiment. You were both too young to marry. But we were impatient to place you both in a post of observation; to see the result of a meeting; to mark what sympathy there would be between two minds formed with a view to each other.

"But vain are all the projects of man. 'Oh! blindness to the future!'

You doubtless remember, that just as every thing was prepared for your journey southward your dear father was seized with the lingering illness of which he died. Till almost the last, he was able to write me, in his intervals of ease, short letters on the favorite topic. I remember with what joy his heart dilated, when he told me of your positive refusal to leave him, on his pressing you to pursue the plan already settled, and to make your visit to London and the Grove without him. I will read you a pa.s.sage from his letter." He read as follows:

"In vain have I endeavored to drive this dear son for a short time from me. He asked with the indignant feeling of affronted filial piety, if I could propose to him any compensation for my absence from his sick couch? 'I make no sacrifice to duty,' said he, 'in preferring you. If I make any sacrifice, it is to pleasure.'"

Seeing my eyes overflow with grateful tenderness, Mr. Stanley said, "If I can find his last letter I will show it you." Then looking over the packet--"here it is," said he, putting it into my hands with visible emotion. Neither of us had strength of voice to be able to read it aloud. It was written at several times.

"PRIORY, Wednesday, _March 18, 1807_.