"Yes." The girl looked down shyly, her cheeks becoming pinker, and her blue eyes shining. She was only nineteen, and she loved him very dearly.
"Of course I shall have to assist my mother," continued Bernard. "She has very little money and will have to live with us when we marry. You won’t mind that, dear; if we keep together there will be enough for us all."
"Yes, of course." But for the first time a shadow stole across the girl’s face. She was rather afraid of Mrs. Cameron, who was the somewhat stern widow of a Wesleyan minister.
Bernard Cameron divined her thoughts. "Mother’s sure to like you, Doris," he said. "She’s a bit particular, you know. But you are _so good_. She cannot fail to approve of you. Ours will be a most suitable match in every way. Mother will be very pleased about it."
The shadow passed away from Doris’s face, and she smiled. Bernard knew his mother much better than she, therefore he must be right. And her last misgiving vanishing, she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the present.
Time passed as they sat there on the pretty hill at Askern, where so many lovers have sat and walked, plighting their troth and building castles in the air; and it seemed as if these two, who were so young and ardent, would never tire of telling their version of the old, old story of the love of man for woman and woman for man. It was all so new to them that they would have been both startled and incredulous if any one had suggested that the same sort of thing had gone on continuously ever since Adam first saw Eve in the Garden of Eden.
However, everything comes to an end, and the best events always pass the quickest; and so it happened that, in an incredibly short time, the sun sank low in the heavens and finally disappeared, leaving a radiance behind, which was soon swallowed up in twilight and the approaching shades of night. The girl first became uneasy at the lateness of the hour.
"We must go home," she said. "Mother will think I am lost. Oh, Bernard, I did not know it was so late."
"Never mind," said he, "we have been so happy. This has been the first--the very first of many happy times, darling."
"But I don’t like annoying mother," said Doris penitently. "Oh, Bernard, let us hurry home!"