"Why should I tell you what you cannot alter? They are every-day

things:--perhaps they have been a little worse lately."

"Family annoyances. Don't fear speaking. I guess them."

"Papa has been more irritable lately. Fred makes him angry, and this

morning there was a fresh quarrel because Fred threatens to throw his

whole education away, and do something quite beneath him. And

besides--"

Rosamond hesitated, and her cheeks were gathering a slight flush.

Lydgate had never seen her in trouble since the morning of their

engagement, and he had never felt so passionately towards her as at

this moment. He kissed the hesitating lips gently, as if to encourage

them.

"I feel that papa is not quite pleased about our engagement," Rosamond

continued, almost in a whisper; "and he said last night that he should

certainly speak to you and say it must be given up."

"Will you give it up?" said Lydgate, with quick energy--almost angrily.

"I never give up anything that I choose to do," said Rosamond,

recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord.

"God bless you!" said Lydgate, kissing her again. This constancy of

purpose in the right place was adorable. He went on:--

"It is too late now for your father to say that our engagement must be

given up. You are of age, and I claim you as mine. If anything is

done to make you unhappy,--that is a reason for hastening our marriage."

An unmistakable delight shone forth from the blue eyes that met his,

and the radiance seemed to light up all his future with mild sunshine.

Ideal happiness (of the kind known in the Arabian Nights, in which you

are invited to step from the labor and discord of the street into a

paradise where everything is given to you and nothing claimed) seemed

to be an affair of a few weeks' waiting, more or less.

"Why should we defer it?" he said, with ardent insistence. "I have

taken the house now: everything else can soon be got ready--can it

not? You will not mind about new clothes. Those can be bought

afterwards."

"What original notions you clever men have!" said Rosamond, dimpling

with more thorough laughter than usual at this humorous incongruity.

"This is the first time I ever heard of wedding-clothes being bought

after marriage."

"But you don't mean to say you would insist on my waiting months for

the sake of clothes?" said Lydgate, half thinking that Rosamond was

tormenting him prettily, and half fearing that she really shrank from

speedy marriage. "Remember, we are looking forward to a better sort of

happiness even than this--being continually together, independent of

others, and ordering our lives as we will. Come, dear, tell me how

soon you can be altogether mine."




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