o details.
To her the day was one of exceeding joy. A lover in China, or waging
wars in Zululand or elsewhere among the distant regions, is a
misfortune. A lover ought to be at hand, ready at the moment, to be
kissed or scolded, to wait upon you, or, so much sweeter still, to be
waited upon, just as the occasion may serve. But the lover in China
is better than one in the next street or the next parish,--or only a
few miles off by railway,--whom you may not see. The heart recognizes
the necessity occasioned by distance with a sweet softness of
tender regrets, but is hardened by mutiny, or crushed by despair in
reference to stern parents or unsuitable pecuniary circumstances.
Lady Frances had been enduring the sternness of parents, and had been
unhappy. Now there had come a break. She had seen what he was like,
and had heard his voice, and been reassured by his vows, and had
enjoyed the longed-for opportunity of repeating her own. "Nothing,
nothing, nothing can change me!" How was he to be sure of that
while she had no opportunity of telling him that it was so? "No
time;--nothing that papa can say, nothing that John can do, will have
any effect. As to Lady Kingsbury, of course you know that she has
thrown me off altogether." It was nothing to him, he said, who might
have thrown her off. Having her promise, he could bide his time. Not
but that he was impatient; but that he knew that when so much was to
be given to him at last, it behoved him to endure all things rather
than to be faint of heart. And so they parted.

She, however, in spite of her joy, had a troubled spirit when he
was gone. She had declared to her brother that she was bound by no
promise as to seeing or not seeing her lover, but yet she was aware
how much she owed to him, and that, though she had not promised, he
had made a promise on her behalf, to her father. But for that promise
she would never have been allowed to be at Hendon Hall. His brother
had made all his arrangements so as to provide for her a home in
which she might be free from the annoyances inflicted upon her by her
stepmother; but had done so almost with a provision that she should
not see George Roden. She certainly had done nothing herself to
infringe that stipulation; but George Roden had come, and she had
seen him. She might have refused him admittance, no doubt; but
then again she thought that it would have been impossible to do so.
How could she have told the man to deny her, thus pro