at
one point removed, he might only express a regret that fortune had
not been more favourable to you, or require a delay, to make him
certain of our sincere and permanent attachment. After that point is
made clear, let us be open as the day with him. In the meanwhile, he
must receive you as a friend who has rendered him the greatest and
deepest of services; and I shall ever receive you, Wilton, I need not
tell you, as the only dear and valued friend that I possess."
"But suppose, dear Laura," said Wilton, "suppose I were to see you
pressed to marry some one else; suppose I were to see some suitor in
every respect qualified to hope for and expect your hand--"
"You do not doubt me, Wilton?" said Lady Laura.
"Oh no!" he replied. "Not for a moment, Laura. But it would be very
painful."
"It would be so to us both," she replied; "but I would take care that
the pain should soon be brought to an end. Depend upon it, Wilton,
it will be better as I say; let us not, in order to avoid uncertain
pains and dangers, run into certain ones."
Wilton at once yielded to her views, and promised to be entirely
guided by her opinion.
The day broke upon them just as they were passing through London, on
their way to Beaufort House; but the night which had just passed had
left them with changed feelings in many respects. It had been one of
those eventful periods which come in, from time to time, like
revolutions in states, to change entirely the very constitution of
our whole thoughts and feelings, to give a new character and entirely
new combinations to the strange microcosm within us. That great
change had been effected in Laura by that which is the great first
mover of a woman's destinies. She loved and had avowed her love: she
was married in spirit to the man beside her, and she felt that to a
heart like hers eternity itself could not dissolve the tie which had
that night been voluntarily established between them. She viewed not
such things as many, nay, most other women view them; she looked not
on such engagements, she looked not on such affections, as things to
be taken up and dropped, to be worn to-day, in the gloss of novelty,
and cast away to-morrow, like a fretted garment; she judged not that
it was the standing before the altar and receiving the ring upon her
finger, and promising to wear out earthly existence with another
human being, that constitutes the union which must join woman to the
man of her heart. But she regarded the avowal of mutual love, the
promis