CHAPTER XVIII.
In spite of the previous assurance of Mrs. Poyntz, it was not without an
uneasy apprehension that I approached the cedar-tree, under which Mrs.
Ashleigh still sat, her friend beside her. I looked on the fair creature
whose arm was linked in mine. So young, so singularly lovely, and with
all the gifts of birth and fortune which bend avarice and ambition the
more submissively to youth and beauty, I felt as if I had wronged what a
parent might justly deem her natural lot.
"Oh, if your mother should disapprove!" said I, falteringly. Lilian
leaned on my arm less lightly. "If I had thought so," she said with her
soft blush, "should I be thus by your side?"
So we passed under the boughs of the dark tree, and Lilian left me and
kissed Mrs. Ashleigh's cheek; then, seating herself on the turf, laid her
head on her mother's lap. I looked on the Queen of the Hill, whose keen
eye shot over me. I thought there was a momentary expression of pain or
displeasure on her countenance; but it passed. Still there seemed to me
something of irony, as well as of triumph or congratulation, in the
half-smile with which she quitted her seat, and in the tone with which she
whispered, as she glided by me to the open sward, "So, then, it is
settled."
She walked lightly and quickly down the lawn. When she was out of sight I
breathed more freely. I took the seat which she had left, by Mrs.
Ashleigh's side, and said, "A little while ago I spoke of myself as a man
without kindred, without home, and now I come to you and ask for both."
Mrs. Ashleigh looked at me benignly, then raised her daughter's face from
her lap, and whispered, "Lilian;" and Lilian's lips moved, but I did not
hear her answer. Her mother did. She took Lilian's hand, simply placed
it in mine, and said, "As she chooses, I choose; whom she loves, I love."
