Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/339

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OF WILDFELL HALL.
329

and in a minute I had opened the window again, leaped out, picked up the flower, brought it in, and presented it to her, imploring her to give it me again, and I would keep it for ever for her sake, and prize it more highly than anything in the world I possessed.

"And will this content you?" said she as she took it in her hand.

"It shall," I answered.

"There, then; take it."

I pressed it earnestly to my lips, and put it in my bosom, Mrs. Huntingdon looking on with a half sarcastic smile.

"Now, are you going?" said she.

"I will if—if I must."

"You are changed," persisted she—"you are grown either very proud or very indifferent."

"I am neither, Helen—Mrs. Huntingdon. If you could see my heart—"

"You must be one,—if not both. And why Mrs. Huntingdon?—why not Helen, as before?"