Shirley

Hollow's Cottage, with Miss Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Keeldar of Fieldhead Hall.«
    Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour; but the light in her eye was not faltering: it shone steadily – yes – it burned deeply.
    »That is your revenge,« she said, slowly: then added; »Would it be a bad match, unworthy of the late Charles Cave Keeldar's representative?«
    »My lass, Moore is a gentleman: his blood is pure and ancient as mine or thine.«
    »And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride, though one of us at least is a Republican?«
    Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute, but his eye confessed the impeachment. Yes – he had family pride – you saw it in his whole bearing.
    »Moore
is
a gentleman,« echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad grace. She checked herself – words seemed crowding to her tongue, she would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment: what –– Yorke tried to read, but could not – the language was there –– visible, but untranslatable – a poem – a fervid lyric in an unknown tongue. It was not a plain story, however – no simple gush of feeling – no ordinary love-confession – that was obvious; it was something other, deeper, more intricate than he guessed at: he felt his revenge had not struck home; he felt that Shirley triumphed – she held him at fault, baffled, puzzled;
she
enjoyed the moment – not
he.
    »And if Moore
is
a gentleman, you
can
be only a lady, therefore –«
    »Therefore there would be no inequality in our union?«
    »None.«
    »Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me away when I relinquish the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?«
    Mr. Yorke instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not divine what her look signified; whether she spoke in earnest or in jest: there was purpose and feeling, banter and scoff playing, mingled, on her mobile lineaments.
    »I don't understand thee,« he said, turning away.
    She laughed: »Take courage, sir; you are not singular in your ignorance: but I suppose if Moore understands me that will do – will it not?«
    »Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me; I'll neither meddle nor make with them further.«
    A new thought crossed her: her countenance changed magically: with a sudden darkening of the eye, and austere fixing of the features, she demanded, –
    »Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as another's proxy?«
    »The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your questions for Robert; I'll answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!«
     
    The day being fine, or at least fair – for soft clouds curtained the sun, and a dim but not chill or waterish haze slept blue on the hills – Caroline, while Shirley was engaged with her callers, had persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her bonnet and summer shawl, and to take a walk with her up towards the narrow end of the Hollow.
    Here, the opposing sides of the glen approaching each other, and becoming clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine; at the bottom of which ran the mill-stream, in broken unquiet course, struggling with many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Here, when you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep solitude: found it in the shade of unmolested trees; received it in the singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no trodden way: the freshness of the woodflowers attested that foot of man seldom pressed them: the abounding wild-roses looked as if they budded, bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude, as in a sultan's harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognised in pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, an humble type of some star-lit spot in space.
    Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk: she ever shunned highroads, and sought byways and lonely lanes: one companion she preferred to total solitude, for in solitude she was nervous: a vague fear of annoying encounters broke the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles; but she feared nothing with Caroline: when once she got away from human habitations, and entered the still demesne of Nature, accompanied by this one youthful friend, a propitious change seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her countenance. When with Caroline – and Caroline only – her heart, you would have said, shook