But a girl approaching sixteen, and who is with a youth
who possesses her entire confidence, is not apt to be long
silent. Something she will say; and how often is that something warm
with natural feeling, instinct with truth, and touching from its
confiding simplicity!
"You will sometimes think of us, Miles?" was Lucy's next remark, and
it was said in a tone that induced me to look her full in the face,
when I discovered that her eyes were suffused with tears.
"Of that you may be _very_ certain, and I hope to be rewarded in
kind. But, now I think of it, Lucy, I have a debt to pay you, and, at
the same time, a little interest. Here are the half-joes you forced me
to take last year, when we parted at Clawbonny. See, they are exactly
the same pieces; for I would as soon have parted with a finger, as
with one of them."
"I had hoped they might have been of use to you, and had quite
forgotten them. You have destroyed an agreeable illusion."
"Is it not quite as agreeable to know we had no occasion for them? No,
here they are; and, now I go with Mr. Hardinge's full approbation,
you very well know I can be in no want of money. So, there is your
gold; and here, Lucy, is some interest for the use of it."
I made an effort to put something into the dear girl's hand as I
spoke, but all the strength I could properly apply was not equal to
the purpose.
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