Soon after breakfast Charles Hatfield and Lady Frances found themselves alone together in the apartment; and the young maiden, approaching her companion, said in her artless, fascinating manner, “I am delighted to see that you have recovered your natural gaiety. Do you know, Mr. Charles, that you have latterly been most desperately moody and reserved?”
“Not towards you, I hope, dear Fanny,” he replied. “Not for worlds,” he added emphatically, “would I give you cause to think ill of me.”
“As for thinking ill of you, Charles,” she observed, “_that_ would be impossible! But may I not seek to know the reasons of your late unhappiness?”
“Let us not discourse upon the past, Fanny,” said the young man, earnestly. “I am happy now, at all events--happier, too, than ever, because I perceive that my welfare is not altogether indifferent to you.”
“Far from it,” observed Lady Frances, with the ingenuous emphasis of her extreme artlessness. “Do we not live beneath the same roof?--are we not friends?--are not our parents very dear friends to each other?--and is it not therefore natural that I should feel interested in all that concerns your happiness?”
“Adorable creature!” exclaimed Charles, as he drew a rapid contrast between the charming _naiveté_ of the beautiful Lady Frances and the forward, bold manner of the voluptuously lovely Perdita: then, taking his cousin’s hand, and gazing tenderly upon her innocent countenance, he said, “Fanny, were our parents to sanction our marriage, would you consent to be mine?”
Lady Frances withdrew her hand hastily; and, blushing deeply, she gazed for a few seconds in the most unfeigned surprise on her companion.
“You are not offended with me?” asked Charles. “I had hoped--I had flattered myself----”
“No--I am not offended with you,” returned Fanny, now casting down her eyes and blushing even more deeply than before: “but I fear--I tremble lest I am doing wrong thus to listen to you----”
“A virtuous affection is no crime,” said the young man, hastily. “And now, my dearest Frances, if you feel that you _can_ love me, I will at once declare to your noble parents the attachment--the deep attachment which I experience towards you.”
“Whatever my father and mother counsel, will become a law for me,” answered Lady Frances, in a low and tremulous tone, which convinced the suitor that he was not indifferent to her.