so plainly—I am sure he understands that it is all to be at an end.'
'But if he should, and if you should then think differently towards him—'
'Oh, no!'
'But if you should, it may be well that you should know how all your friends esteem him. In a worldly view the marriage would be in all respects prudent: and as to disposition and temper, which I admit are much more important, I confess I think that he has all the qualities best adapted to make a wife happy. But, as I said before, the heart must speak for itself.'
'Yes; of course. And I know that I shall never love him;—not in that way.'
'You may be sure, dearest, that there will be no constraint put upon you. It might be possible that I or your papa should forbid a daughter's marriage, if she had proposed to herself an imprudent match; but neither he nor I would ever use our influence with a child to bring about a marriage because we think it prudent in a worldly point of view.' And then Lady Staveley kissed her daughter.
'Dear mamma, I know how good you are to me.' And she answered her mother's embrace by the pressure of her arm. But nevertheless she did not feel herself to be quite comfortable. There was something in the words which her mother had spoken which grated against her most cherished feelings;—something, though she by no means knew what. Why had her mother cautioned her in that way, that there might be a case in which she would refuse her sanction to a proposed marriage? Isabella's marriage had been concluded with the full agreement of the whole family; and she, Madeline, had certainly never as yet given cause either to father or mother to suppose that she would be headstrong and imprudent. Might not the caution have been omitted?—or was it intended to apply in any way to circumstances as they now existed?
'You had better go now, dearest,' said Lady Staveley, 'and for the present we will not think any more about this gallant young knight.' And then Madeline, having said good night, went off rather crestfallen to her own room. In doing so she again had to pass Graham's door, and as she went by it, walking not quite on tiptoe, she could not help asking herself whether or no he would really recognize the sound of her footsteps.
It is hardly necessary to say that Lady Staveley had conceived to herself a recognized purpose in uttering that little caution to her daughter; and she would have been quite as well pleased had circumstances taken Felix Graham out of her house instead of Peregrine Orme. But Felix Graham must necessarily remain for the next fortnight, and there could be no possible benefit in Orme's return, at any rate till Graham should have gone.
