The Argosy — page 35: what you’re looking at

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20 The White Witch. The Vicar met them at the door, with the sublime gravity of manner he wore when he had been startled out of a doze. As Godfrey paused to exchange a few words with Matilda and Elspeth, Mrs. Thornhill drew her husband aside and rapidly made some communication to him. When the doomed young man advanced to say good-night, the Vicar spoke in an ominously soft voice : ‘‘Can you come over to-morrow morning early, Godfrey? I have to go to Keighley at ten, and on Monday we start for Coniston, and I particularly want to speak to you first.” “Won't to-night do, Mr. Thornhill? I don’t know whether I could be here so early,” said Godfrey, who wanted to get it over, knowing that something particular is generally something unpleasant. “Very well,” said the Vicar after a moment’s pause. ‘‘ Will you come into the study ?” The Vicar’s evening manner, lend he was tired with his day’s work in the parish, was never one to encourage a wandering sheep ; but when he had firmly insisted on sitting up far into the night, alternately dozing and waking up to feel chilly, waiting for the return of his wife and daughters from a festivity of which he at heart disap- proved, his manner was calculated to induce the sheep to turn his back to the fold and run the other way. So that Godfrey’s proposa! had a touch of Marcus Curtius’ heroism. They went into the great bare-looking study, and the two girls, who knew papa’s bland voice, felt a pang of pity for the victim as they heard the door close. | “T shouldn’t like to think, Godfrey,” began the Vicar very gently, looking up at the opposite wall, as he did when he was preaching, ‘‘that your father’s son was anything but honourable.” “‘T hope not, Mr. Thornhill,” replied Godfrey, playing with his glove, and seeing that he was likely to enjoy himself. “But do you think that you are behaving quite rightly, <were as you should do, to my little daughter ? ” “To Elspeth ? How do you mean, sir?” “I think you must know; I may say I see that you do know. I don’t want to be severe with you. I have been among the first to notice the great improvement, if I may use the expression, in you lately, the new manliness you have shown. I had begun to congratu- late myself on being about to confide the happiness of one of my children to a man whom I would myself have chosen for the trust. But now—I have seen signs, and my wife has seen signs, little Elspeth herself has guessed something too, that this change in you is not the result of her influence; nor, as far as I can see, of the thought of marriage with her.” ‘But if the change in me is for the better, surely it is for her advantage, whatever influence it may be due to,” returned Godfrey. “Not quite, in this case, I think. At least I should not feel justified in trusting my daughter for life to a man whom I suspected Eomichbooks.co