'Hush, Becky! Don't cry so, child!' I murmured, not a little touched, and trying to wipe her tears away. 'It is not so bad as you think--not for me. I should very much prefer leaving Fairview now, I assure you, indeed---- What if I tell you a secret, Becky; something which no one else, not even Miss Lilian, knows, though I love her so much? I think I can do very well without taking another situation, and I mean to have you with me.'
'Do without!' she ejaculated, her thoughts, I think, reverting to my small success in 'doing without' at Mrs Sowler's. 'Don't try that again, for'----
'Listen a moment, Becky. In three or four months I am going to be married.'
'Married! Oh, Miss Haddon, dear!' she ejaculated, her mouth expanding and her whole face brightening. 'And may I guess who he is? I think I can.'
'It's that gentleman, Mr Wentworth, who comes here so often, and looks at you so. Isn't it? Mr Saunders said he knew it would come. And I don't believe there's another gentleman in all the world as is so fit for you, that I don't; for I know a little about him too. I did not like to tell you before, but that time as'----
'Stop, stop, Becky!' I ejaculated, laughing outright. 'What in the world put such an idea into your head? Mr Wentworth indeed! Certainly not; _quite_ a different kind of gentleman.'
'But I do not wish it mentioned, Becky. I only tell you that you may have the pleasure of feeling that you and I need have no anxiety about the future; for of course you will be with me.'
There was only one little drawback to Becky's happiness now--the regret that Robert Wentworth was not to be my husband; and I thought his being so great a favourite of hers quite sufficiently accounted for her disappointment. I, in turn, was a little disappointed that the face I had shewn her in the locket was so difficult to connect with the idea of my happiness; though I told myself Philip must look much more manly now. But having set Becky's fears at rest, I was a great deal too anxious about Lilian's future to think much about my own.
Men of science in their eagerness to support a theory are apt to fall into mistakes. They reason honestly enough, but from too narrow a basis of facts. For example, the skeleton of a man is found imbedded in limestone. That man must have lived in the geological period, long before the commencement of human record. This theory looks well, but is not satisfactory. We do not know at what time the limestone, which was originally a loose substance, assumed the rocky form. There is a case in point.