"And now you can do as you please. You may be quite sure that I shall be true to you, through ill report and good report. Nothing that mamma can say to me will change me, and certainly nothing from Sir Magnus.
"And now there need not be a word from you, if you mean to be true to me. Indeed, I have promised that there shall be no word, and I expect you to keep my promise for me. If you wish to be free of me, then you must write and say so.
"But you won't wish it, and therefore I am yours, always, always, always your own
Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!" Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"
"I think she means that you should be silent."
"She has taken a very odd way of assuming it. I am to keep her promise for her,--my darling, my angel, my life! But I cannot do that one thing. Oh, mother, mother, if you knew how happy I am! What the mischief does it all signify,--Uncle Prosper, Miss Thoroughbung, and the rest of it,--with a girl like that?"
Harry was kissed all round by the girls, and was congratulated warmly on the heavenly excellence of his mistress. They could afford to be generous if he would be good-natured. "Of course you must write to her," said Molly, when he came down-stairs with dry clothes.
"Only she does seem to be so much in earnest about it," said Mrs. Annesley.