“Say that again,” he cried, eagerly.
“Why should I?” she said, sadly.
“Then—then you do love me, Mary?”
“I—I think so,” she said, softly; and the little lady’s voice was very grave; “but love in this world has often to give way to duty.”
“Ye-es,” he said, dubiously; “but where two people have been waiting such a precious long time before they found out what love really is, it seems rather hard to be told that duty must stand first.”
“It is hard, but it is fact,” she said.
“I don’t know so much about that,” said the little doctor. “Just now I feel as if it was my bounden duty to make you my happy little wife.”
“And how can I think it my duty to accept you?” she said, smiling.
“Well, I do ask a great deal,” he replied. “It means going to the other side of the world; but, my dear Mary, you should never repent it.”
“I know I never should,” she replied. “We have only lately seen one another face to face, but I have known you and your kindness these many years.”
“Then why refuse me?”
“For one thing, I am too old,” she said, sadly.
“Your dear little heart is too young, and good, and tender, you mean.”
She shook her head.
“That’s no argument against it,” he said. “And now what else?”
“There is my brother,” she replied, speaking very firmly now.
“Your brother?”
“You know what dear Arthur is.”
“The simplest, and best, and truest of men.”
“Yes,” she cried, with animation.
“And a clever naturalist, whose worth has never yet been thoroughly known.”
“He is unworldly to a degree,” continued the little lady; “and as you justly say, the simplest of men.”
“I would not have him in the slightest degree different,” cried the doctor.
“I scold him a good deal sometimes,” said the little lady, smiling; “but I don’t think I would have him different in the least.”
“No; why should we?” said the doctor.
That we was a cunning stroke of diplomacy, and it made Miss Rosebury start. She shook her head though directly.
“No, Henry Bolter,” she said, firmly, “it cannot be.”
“Cannot be?” he said, despondently.
“No; I could not leave my brother. Let us join them in the garden!”
“I am not to take that for an answer?” cried the doctor.
“Yes,” she replied; “it would be cruel to leave him.”
“But Mary, dear Mary, you do not dislike me!” cried the little doctor. “I’m not much to look at I know; not a very gallant youth, my dear!”
“I think you are one of the best of men! You make me very proud to think that—that you could—could—”
“And you have owned to liking me, my dear?” he whispered. “Say yea. Arthur would soon get used to your absence; and of course, before long we should come back.”
“No,” she said firmly, “it could not be!”
“Not be!” he said in a tone of so much misery that little Miss Rosebury added:
“Not for me to go out there. We must wait.”
“Wait!”
“Yes; a few years soon pass away, and you will return.”
“But we—I mean—I am getting so precious old,” said the doctor dismally.
“Yes, we should be much older, Henry,” said the little lady sweetly, as she held out her hand; “but surely our esteem would never fade.”
“Never!” he cried, kissing her hand again; and then he laid that hand upon his arm, and they went out into the garden, where the little lady’s eyes soon made out the Reverend Arthur bending over his choicest flowers, to pick the finest blossoms for a bouquet ready for Helen Perowne to carelessly throw aside.
Satisfied that her brother was in no imminent danger with Grey Stuart present, little Miss Rosebury made no opposition to a walk round; the doctor thinking that perhaps, now the ice was broken, he might manage to prevail.
“How beautiful the garden is!” said the little lady, to turn the conversation.
“Beautiful, yes! but, my dear madam,” exclaimed the doctor, in didactic tones, “a garden in Malaya, where I ask you to go—the jungle gorgeous with flowers—the silver river sparkling in the eternal sunshine—the green of the ever-verdant woods—the mountains lifting—”
“Thank you, doctor,” said the little lady, “that is very pretty; but when I was a young girl they took me to see the ‘Lady of Lyons,’ and I remember that a certain mock prince describes his home to the lady something in that way—a palace lifting to eternal summer—and lo! as they say in the old classic stories, it was only a gardener’s cottage after all!”
The matter-of-fact little body had got over her emotion, and this remark completely extinguished the doctor for the time.
Volume One—Chapter Ten.
Miss Rosebury Speaks Seriously.
The next day, when the visitors had been driven back by the Reverend Arthur, his sister met him upon the step, and taking his arm, led him down the garden to the vine-house.
“Let us go in here, Arthur,” she said. “It is such a good place to talk in; there is no fear of being overheard.”
“Yes, it is a quiet retired place,” he said thoughtfully.
“I hope you were careful in driving, and had no accident, Arthur?”
“N-no; I had no accident, only I drove one wheel a little up the bank in Sandrock Lane.”
“How was that? You surely did not try to pass another carriage in that narrow part?”
“N-no,” hesitated the Reverend Arthur. “Let me see, how was it? Oh, I remember. Miss Perowne had made some remark to me, and I was thinking of my answer.”
“And nearly upset them,” cried Miss Rosebury. “Oh! Arthur—Arthur, you grow more rapt and dreamy every day; What is coming to you I want to know?”
The Reverend Arthur started guiltily, and gazed at his sister.
“Oh! Arthur,” she cried, shaking a warning finger at him, “you are neglecting your garden and your natural history pursuits to try and make yourself a cavalier of dames, and it will not do. There—there, I won’t scold you; but I am beginning to think that it will be a very good thing when our visitors have gone for good.”
The Reverend Arthur sighed, and half turned away to snip off two or three tendrils from a vine-shoot above his head.
“I want to talk to you very seriously, Arthur,” said the little lady, whose cheeks began to flush slightly with excitement; and she felt relieved as she saw her brother turn a little more