Maulevrier crept up to the piano, and came stealthily behind the lovers.
'Bless you, my children,' he said, hovering over them with outspread hands. 'I am the dove coming back to the ark. I am the bearer of happy tidings. Lady Maulevrier consents to your acquiring the legal right to make each other miserable for the rest of your lives.'
'God bless you, Maulevrier,' said Hammond, clasping him by the hand.
'Only as this sister of mine is hardly out of the nursery you will have to wait for her at least a year. So says the dowager, whose word is like the law of the Medes and Persians, and altereth not.'
'I would wait for her twice seven years, as Jacob waited, and toil for her, as Jacob toiled,' answered Hammond, 'but I should like to call her my own to-morrow, if it were possible.'
Nothing could be happier or gayer than the tea-drinking in Lady Maulevrier's room on the following afternoon. Her ladyship having once given way upon a point knew how to make her concession gracefully. She extended her hand to Mr. Hammond as frankly as if he had been her own particular choice.
'I cannot refuse my granddaughter to her brother's dearest friend,' she said, 'but I think you are two most imprudent young people.'
'Providence takes care of imprudent lovers, just as it does of the birds in their nests,' answered Hammond, smiling.
'Just as much and no more, I fear. Providence does not keep off the cat or the tax-gatherer.'
'Birds must take care of their nests, and husbands must work for their homes,' argued Hammond. 'Heaven gives sweet air and sunlight, and a beautiful world to live in.'
'I think,' said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 'you are just the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You have ideas that would do for the Bush or the Yosemite Valley, but which are too primitive for an over-crowded country.'
'No, Lady Maulevrier, I am not going to steal your granddaughter. When she is my wife she shall live within call. I know she loves her native land, and I don't think either of us would care to put an ocean between us and rugged old Helvellyn.'
'Of course having made idiots of yourselves up there in the fog and the storm you are going to worship the mountain for ever afterwards,' said her ladyship laughing.