I do."

"Say it again."

"I will say it fifty times,--till your ears are weary with it";--and she did say it to him, after her own fashion, fifty times.

"This is a great change," he said, getting up after a while and walking about the room.

"But a change for the better;--is it not, Oswald?"

"So much for the better that I hardly know myself in my new joy. But, Violet, we'll have no delay,--will we? No shilly-shallying. What is the use of waiting now that it's settled?"

"None in the least, Lord Chiltern. Let us say,--this day twelvemonth."

"You are laughing at me, Violet."

"Remember, sir, that the first thing you have to do is to write to your father."

He instantly went to the writing-table and took up paper and pen.

"Come along," he said. "You are to dictate it." But this she refused to do, telling him that he must write his letter to his father out of his own head, and out of his own heart. "I cannot write it," he said, throwing down the pen. "My blood is in such a tumult that I cannot steady my hand."

"You must not be so tumultuous, Oswald, or I shall have to live in a whirlwind."

"Oh, I shall shake down. I shall become as steady as an old stager.

I'll go as quiet in harness by-and-by as though I had been broken to it a four-year-old. I wonder whether Laura could not write this letter."

"I think you should write it yourself, Oswald."

"If you bid me I will."

"Bid you indeed! As if it was for me to bid you. Do you not know that in these new troubles you are undertaking you will have to bid me in everything, and that I shall be bound to do your bidding? Does it not seem to be dreadful? My wonder is that any girl can ever accept any man."

"But you have accepted me now."

"Yes, indeed."

"And you repent?"

"No, indeed, and I will try to do your biddings;--but you must not be rough to me, and outrageous, and fierce,--will you, Oswald?"

"I will not at any rate be like Kennedy is with poor Laura."

"No;--that is not your nature."

"I will do my best, dearest. And you may at any rate be sure of this, that I will love you always. So much good of myself, if it be good, I can say."

"It is very good," she answered; "the best of all good words. And now I must go. And as you are leaving Loughlinter I will say good-bye.

When am I to have the honour and felicity of beholding your lordship again?"

"Say a nice word to me before I am off, Violet."

"I,--love,--you,--better,--than all the world beside; and I mean,--to be your wife,--some day. Are not those twenty nice words?"

He would not prolong his stay at Loughlinter, though he was asked to do so both by Violet and his sister, and though, as he confessed himself, he had no special business elsewhere. "It is no use mincing the matter. I don't like Kennedy, and I don't like being in his house," he said to Violet. And then he promised that there should be a party got up at Saulsby before the winter was over. His plan was to stop that night at Carlisle, and write to his father from thence.

"Your blood, perhaps, won't be so tumultuous at Carlisle," said Violet. He shook his head and went on with his plans. He would then go on to London and down to Willingford, and there wait for his father's answer. "There is no reason why I should lose more of the hunting than necessary." "Pray don't lose a day for me," said Violet. As soon as he heard from his father, he would do his father's bidding. "You will go to Saulsby," said Violet; "you can hunt at Saulsby, you know."

"I will go to Jericho if he asks me, only you will have to go with me." "I thought we were to go to,--Belgium," said Violet.

"And so that is settled at last," said Violet to Laura that night.

"I hope you do not regret it."

"On the contrary, I am as happy as the moments are long."

"My fine girl!"

"I am happy because I love him. I have always loved him. You have known that."

"Indeed, no."

"But I have, after my fashion. I am not tumultuous, as he calls himself. Since he began to make eyes at me when he was nineteen--"

"Fancy Oswald making eyes!"

"Oh, he did, and mouths too. But from the beginning, when I was a child, I have known that he was dangerous, and I have thought that he would pa.s.s on and forget me after a while. And I could have lived without him. Nay, there have been moments when I thought I could learn to love some one else."

"Poor Phineas, for instance."

"We will mention no names. Mr. Appledom, perhaps, more likely. He has been my most constant lover, and then he would be so safe! Your brother, Laura, is dangerous. He is like the bad ice in the parks where they stick up the poles. He has had a pole stuck upon him ever since he was a boy."

"Yes;--give a dog a bad name and hang him."

"Remember that I do not love him a bit the less on that account;--perhaps the better. A sense of danger does not make me unhappy, though the threatened evil may be fatal. I have entered myself for my forlorn hope, and I mean to stick to it. Now I must go and write to his worship. Only think,--I never wrote a love-letter yet!"

Nothing more shall be said about Miss Effingham's first love-letter, which was, no doubt, creditable to her head and heart; but there were two other letters sent by the same post from Loughlinter which shall be submitted to the reader, as they will a.s.sist the telling of the story. One was from Lady Laura Kennedy to her friend Phineas Finn, and the other from Violet to her aunt, Lady Baldock. No letter was written to Lord Brentford, as it was thought desirable that he should receive the first intimation of what had been done from his son.

Respecting the letter to Phineas, which shall be first given, Lady Laura thought it right to say a word to her husband. He had been of course told of the engagement, and had replied that he could have wished that the arrangement could have been made elsewhere than at his house, knowing as he did that Lady Baldock would not approve of it. To this Lady Laura had made no reply, and Mr. Kennedy had condescended to congratulate the bride-elect. When Lady Laura's letter to Phineas was completed she took care to put it into the letter-box in the presence of her husband. "I have written to Mr.

Finn," she said, "to tell him of this marriage."

"Why was it necessary that he should be told?"

"I think it was due to him,--from certain circ.u.mstances."

"I wonder whether there was any truth in what everybody was saying about their fighting a duel?" asked Mr. Kennedy. His wife made no answer, and then he continued--"You told me of your own knowledge that it was untrue."

"Not of my own knowledge, Robert."

"Yes;--of your own knowledge." Then Mr. Kennedy walked away, and was certain that his wife had deceived him about the duel. There had been a duel, and she had known it; and yet she had told him that the report was a ridiculous fabrication. He never forgot anything. He remembered at this moment the words of the falsehood, and the look of her face as she told it. He had believed her implicitly, but he would never believe her again. He was one of those men who, in spite of their experience of the world, of their experience of their own lives, imagine that lips that have once lied can never tell the truth.

Lady Laura's letter to Phineas was as follows: