Miss Jack was usually somewhat of a despot in her own house, but there was nothing despotic about her now as she peered into the book- room. This she did with her bonnet still on, looking round the half- opened door as though she were afraid to disturb her nephew, he sat at the window looking out into the verandah which ran behind the house, so intent on his thoughts that he did not hear her.
"Maurice," she said, "can I come in?"
"Come in? oh yes, of course;" and he turned round sharply at her. "I tell you what, aunt; I am not well here and I cannot stay out the session. I shall go back to Mount Pleasant."
"Maurice," and she walked close up to him as she spoke, "Maurice, I have brought some one with me to ask your pardon."
His face became red up to the roots of his hair as he stood looking at her without answering. "You would grant it certainly," she continued, "if you knew how much it would be valued."
"Whom do you mean? who is it?" he asked at last.
"One who loves you as well as you love her--and she cannot love you better. Come in, Marian." The poor girl crept in at the door, ashamed of what she was induced to do, but yet looking anxiously into her lover"s face. "You asked her yesterday to be your wife," said Miss Jack, "and she did not then know her own mind. Now she has had a lesson. You will ask her once again; will you not, Maurice?"
What was he to say? how was he to refuse, when that soft little hand was held out to him; when those eyes laden with tears just ventured to look into his face?
"I beg your pardon if I angered you last night," she said.
In half a minute Miss Jack had left the room, and in the s.p.a.ce of another thirty seconds Maurice had forgiven her. "I am your own now, you know," she whispered to him in the course of that long evening.
"Yesterday, you know--," but the sentence was never finished.
It was in vain that Julia Davis was ill-natured and sarcastic, in vain that Ewing and Graham made joint attempt upon her constancy.
From that night to the morning of her marriage--and the interval was only three months--Marian Leslie was never known to flirt.