Miss Leaworthy, we none of
us love superstition: but perhaps after all it is something more than
that; there may be a Hand guiding us from above, even in these everyday
trifles! We must never forget, you know, that every hair of our heads is
numbered." Netta's heart fluttered still more violently within her as he looked at
her so closely. Could it be that really, in spite of everything, the
great, learned, good, clever young professor was going to ask her to be
his wife? Netta had listened to him with joy Sunday after Sunday from
his simple platform pulpit, and had felt in her heart that no man never
expounded the gospel of love as beautifully as he did. She had fancied
sometimes--girls cannot help fancying, be they as modest and retiring as
they may--that he really did like her just a little. And she--she had
admired and wondered at him from a distance. But she could hardly
believe even now that that little vague day-dream which had sometimes
floated faintly before her eyes was going to be actually realized in
good earnest. She could answer nothing, her heart beat so; but she
looked down to the ground with a flushed and frightened look which was
more eloquent in its pretty simplicity than all the resources of the
most copious language. Cyril Milliter's mind, however, was pretty well made up already on this
important matter, and he had been waiting long for just such an
opportunity of asking Netta whether she could love him. And now, even
without asking her, he could feel at once by some subtle inner sense
that his eager question was answered beforehand, and that modest,
maidenly little Netta Leaworthy was quite prepared to love him dearly. For a moment he stood there looking at her intently, and neither of them
spoke. Then Netta raised her eyes from the ground for a second's flash;
and Cyril's glance caught hers one instant before she bent them down
again in haste to play nervously with the mangled daisy. "Netta," he
said, the name thrilling through his very marrow as he uttered it,
"Netta, I love you." She stood irresolute for a while, listening to the beating of her own
heart, and then her eye caught his once more, timidly, but she spoke
never a syllable. Cyril took her wee white hand in his--a lady's hand, if ever you saw
one--and raised it with chivalrous tenderness to his lips. Netta allowed
him to raise it and kiss it without resistance. "Then you will let me
love you?" he asked quickly. Netta still did not answer, but throwing
herself back on the bank by the hedgerow began to cry like a frightened
child. Cyril sat down, all tremulous beside her, took the white hand unresisted
in his, and said to her gently, "Oh, Netta, what is this for?" Then Netta answered with an effort, through her tears, "Mr. Milliter,
Mr. Milliter, how can you ever tell me of this?" "Why not, Netta? Why not, my darling? May I not ask you to be my wife? Will you have me, Netta?" Netta looked at him timidly, with another blush, and said slowly, "No,
Mr. Milliter; I cannot. I must not." "Why not, Netta? Oh, why not? Tell me a reason." "Because it wouldn't be right. Because it wouldn't be fair to you. Because it wouldn't be true of me. You ought to marry a lady--some
one in your own rank of life, you know. It would be wrong to tie
your future down to a poor nameless nobody like me, when you might
marry--marry--almost any lady you chose in all Mortiscombe." "Netta, you pain me. You are wronging me. You know I care nothing for
such gewgaws as birth or wealth or rank or station. I would not marry
one of those ladies even if she asked me. And, as to my own position in
life, why, Netta, my position is yours. My parents were poor God-fearing
people, like your parents; and if you will not love me, then, Netta,
Netta, I say it solemnly, I will never, never marry anybody." Netta answered never a word; but, as any other good girl would do in her
place, once more burst into a flood of tears, and looked at him
earnestly from her swimming eyes in speechless doubt and trepidation. Perhaps it was wrong of Cyril Milliter--on a Sunday, and in the public
pathway too--but he simply put his strong arm gently round her waist,
and kissed her a dozen times over fervidly without let or hindrance. Then Netta put him away from her, not too hastily, but with a lingering
hesitation, and said once more, "But, Mr. Milliter, I can never marry
you. You will repent of this yourself by-and-by at your leisure. Just
think, how could I ever marry you, when I should always be too
frightened of you to call you anything but 'Mr. Milliter!'" "Why, Netta," cried the young professor, with a merry laugh, "if that's
all, you'll soon learn to call me, 'Cyril.'" "To call you 'Cyril,' Mr. Milliter! Oh dear, no, never. Why, I've looked
at you so often in meeting, and felt so afraid of you, because you were
so learned, and wise, and terrible: and I'm sure I should never learn to
call you by your Christian name, whatever happened." "And as you can't do that, you won't marry me! I'm delighted to hear it,
Netta--delighted to hear it; for if that's the best reason you can
conjure up against the match, I don't think, little one, I shall find it
very hard to talk you over." "But, Mr. Milliter, are you quite sure you won't regret it yourself
hereafter? Are you quite sure you won't repent, when you find Society
doesn't treat you as it did, for my sake? Are you quite sure nothing
will rise up hereafter between us, no spectre of class difference, or
class prejudice, to divide our lives and make us unhappy?" "Never!" Cyril Milliter answered, seizing both her hands in his eagerly,
and looking up with an instinctive glance to the open heaven above them
as witness. "Never, Netta, as long as I live and you live, shall any
shadow of such thought step in for one moment to put us asunder." And Netta, too proud and pleased to plead against her own heart any
longer, let him kiss her once again a lover's kiss, and pressed his hand
in answer timidly, and walked back with him blushing towards
Mortiscombe, his affianced bride before the face of high heaven. When Society at Mortiscombe first learnt that that clever young
Professor Milliter was really going to marry the daughter of some
factory foreman, Society commented frankly upon the matter according to
the various idiosyncrasies and temperaments of its component members. Some of it was incredulous; some of it was shocked; some of it was
cynical; some of it was satirical; and some of it, shame to say, was
spitefully free with suggested explanations for such very strange and
unbecoming conduct. But Cyril Milliter himself was such a transparently
honest and straightforward man, that, whenever the subject was alluded
to in his presence, he shamed the cynicism and the spitefulness of
Society by answering simply, "Yes, I'm going to marry a Miss Leaworthy,
a very good and sweet girl, the daughter of the foreman at the Tube
Works, who is a great friend of mine and a member of my little Sunday
congregation."