Part 87 (1/2)
”No; that I don't.”
”Then what makes you think you did?”
”Because they say so. Because I must have been such an awful cad if I didn't. And I was always much fonder of you than you were of me. My tippet! I'd give my head sooner than any harm should come to you, Ruperta!”
Ruperta made no reply, but, being now at Highmore, she put out her hand to him, and turned her head away. He kissed her hand devotedly, and so they parted.
Compton told Lady Ba.s.sett all that happened, and Ruperta told Mrs.
Ba.s.sett.
Those ladies readily promised to be on the side of peace, but they feared it could only be the work of time, and said so.
By-and-by Compton got impatient, and told Ruperta he had thought of a way to compel their fathers to be friends. ”I am afraid you won't like the idea at _first,”_ said he; ”but the more you think of it, the more you will see it is the surest way of all.”
”Well, but what is it?”
”You must let me marry you.”
Ruperta stared, and began to blush crimson.
”Will you, cousin?”
”Of course not, child. The idea!”
”Oh, Ruperta,” cried the boy in dismay, ”surely you don't mean to marry anybody else but me!”
”Would that make you very unhappy, then?”
”You know it would, wretched for my life.”
”I should not like to do that. But I disapprove of early marriages. I mean to wait till I'm nineteen; and that is three years nearly.”
”It is a fearful time; but if you will promise not to marry anybody else, I suppose I shall live through it.”
Ruperta, though she made light of Compton's offer, was very proud of it (it was her first). She told her mother directly.
Mrs. Ba.s.sett sighed, and said that was too blessed a thing ever to happen.
”Why not?” said Ruperta.
”How could it,” said Mrs. Ba.s.sett, ”with everybody against it but poor little me!”
”Compton a.s.sures me that Lady Ba.s.sett wishes it.”
”Indeed! But Sir Charles and papa, Ruperta?”
”Oh, Compton must talk Sir Charles over, and I will persuade papa. I'll begin this evening, when he comes home from London.”
Accordingly, as he was sitting alone in the dining-room sipping his gla.s.s of port, Ruperta slipped away from her mother's side and found him.