"MY LIFE, I LOVE THEE!"
--Then, in that time and place I spoke to her,
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own,
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear,
Requiring, at her hand, the greatest gift,
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved.
When "hope deferred," and baffled love combined, had well-nigh made me
as miserable and woebegone as I could possibly be, I heard a piece of
news one day which almost nerved up my halting resolution to bring
affairs to a final issue by speaking out again to Mrs Clyde--no matter
what might be the result.
The joyful intelligence was circulated by the pleased Lady Dasher, that,
Mr Mawley had at length proposed for her daughter, Bessie. It was time
for it, as he had angled around and nibbled warily at the tempting bait
offered him--like the knowing fish that he was--for months before he
would permit himself to be caught!
The curate had, doubtless, noticed at length that the damsel was comely
withal; and, his heart yearned towards her. The reverend gentleman,
however, had not been unobservant of the charms of other maidens with
whom he had been brought in contact, so, it may be presumed that his
heart had "yearned" in vain for them; or, peradventure, these had not
played with him so dexterously, when once hooked, as did the fair
Bessie--who had not been the granddaughter of an Irish peer for nothing!
Still, there is no object to be gained now in raking up all of Mr
Mawley's old conquests or defeats, ere his present "wooing and a':"--he
had been accepted, in this his most recent venture, and was engaged
explicitly--Lady Dasher taking very good care to inform everybody of her
acquaintance of the fact, in order that there might arise no such little
mistake as that of the curate's backing out of the alliance.
Her ladyship only wished for one thing more to make her "happy," so she
said; and that was, that her "poor dear papa" were but alive, so that
she might tell him, too, about the coming event. This was impossible
though, as she added, with her customary melancholy shake of the head,
and a return to her normal expression of poignant grief; for, as she
said very truly, "one can never expect to be thoroughly happy in this
weary pilgrimage of ours!"
Her complete gratification would, certainly, have been little less than
a miracle.
The engagement was of very short duration, Bessie's mamma acting up to
the Hibernian policy of "cooking her fish," as soon as she had captured
him. There's "many a slip," you know, "'twixt cup and lip."
Mawley would probably have gladly lingered yet awhile longer amid the
festive scenes of clerical bachelorhood, flirting--in a devout way, of
course--under the shade of the church, with Chloe and Daphne, those
unappropriated spinsters of the parish who took pleasure in ministering
to the social wants of the curate and others of his cloth.
But, it was not to be. Lady Dasher was, for a wonder, wise in her
generation; and, the twain--not my lady and Mawley, but her daughter and
ditto--were married within a month after the public announcement of
their attachment, much to the surprise of Saint Canon's, the
mortification of sundry single ladies thereof, and the well-disguised
delight of Lady Dasher, who, even on such a festive occasion, looked
more melancholic than ever.
It was this, that nerved me up to desperation. Why, thought I, the day
after the wedding, as I paced along the Prebend's Walk--over which the
long-branched elms and waving oaks and thickly-growing lime-trees formed
a perfect arch, in all the panoply of their new summer leaves,
sheltering one from rain and sun alike--why, thought I, should that
fellow, Mawley, be made happy, and I not?
Really, I could not answer the question at all satisfactorily.
You see, I was not able to come to a decision with myself as to whether
I should repeat the darling request which I had made to Min very nearly
twelve months before, or wait on still in suspense. The risk of the
former course was great, for, Mrs Clyde might, and most likely would,
put an end immediately to all communication whatever between us, should
she continue hostile to my suit--an eventuality horrible to contemplate;
and yet, would it not be better for me to be relieved from the existing
state of uncertainty in which my mind was plunged?
What must I do?