Mortimer did not interrupt for at least two hours, I rode home thinking
with a throb of the heart 'If she will only love me?' Then the throb
was succeeded by a sudden sinking of the same organ. 'But there will be
no opportunity!' I groaned, 'doubtless in two or three days she will
leave this part of the country!' A week afterward that apprehension had
been completely removed. Miss Mortimer was still faint and weak, 'from
her accident.' All her movements were slow and languid. She had not
left the good parson's house, Surry--and what is more she was not going
to leave it! She had learned what she desired to know about me; heard
that I was a young man of great wealth; and had devised a scheme so
singular that--but let me not anticipate! She proceeded rapidly. In our
second interview she 'made eyes at me.' In the third, she blushed and
murmured, avoiding my glances, when I looked at her. In the fourth, she
blushed more deeply when I took her hand--but did not withdraw it. In
the fifth, the fair head in some manner had come to rest on my
shoulder--no doubt from weakness. And in a few days afterward the shy,
embarrassed, loving, palpitating creature, blushing deeply, 'sunk upon
my bosom,' as the poets say, and murmured, 'How can I resist you?'
"In other words, my dear friend, _Miss Mortimer_ had promised to become
_my wife_, and I need not say, I was the happiest of men.
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