Yes; smile disdainfully, but listen still. She was obscure
and in distress. I loved her not for her fair looks alone; I loved her
for her good gifts, for her patient industry, for her filial duty, for
her struggles to give bread to her father's board. I did not say to
myself, 'This girl will make a comely fere, a delicate paramour!' I
said, 'This good daughter will make a wife whom an honest man may take
to his heart and cherish!'" Poor Alwyn stopped, with tears in his
voice, struggled with his emotions, and pursued: "My fortunes were more
promising than hers; there was no cause why I might not hope. True, I
had a rival then; young as myself, better born, comelier; but she loved
him not. I foresaw that his love for her--if love it were--would cease.
Methought that her mind would understand mine; as mine--verily I say
it--yearned for hers! I could not look on the maidens of mine own rank,
and who had lived around me, but what--oh, no, my lord, again I say, not
the beauty, but the gifts, the mind, the heart of Sibyll, threw them
all into the shade. You may think it strange that I--a plain, steadfast,
trading, working, careful man--should have all these feelings; but I
will tell you wherefore such as I sometimes have them, nurse them, brood
on them, more than you lords and gentlemen, with all your graceful arts
in pleasing. We know no light loves! no brief distractions to the one
arch passion! We sober sons of the stall and the ware are no general
gallants,--we love plainly, we love but once, and we love heartily. But
who knows not the proverb, 'What's a gentleman but his pleasure?'--and
what's pleasure but change? When Sibyll came to the palace, I soon heard
her name linked with yours; I saw her cheek blush when you spoke. Well,
well, well! after all, as the old wives tell us, 'Blushing is virtue's
livery.' I said, 'She is a chaste and high-hearted girl.' This will
pass, and the time will come when she can compare your love and mine.
Now, my lord, the time has come. I know that you seek her. Yea, at
this moment, I know that her heart beats for your footstep. Say but
one word,--say that you love Sibyll Warner with the thought of wedding
her,--say that, on your honour, noble Hastings, as gentleman and peer,
and I will kneel at your feet, and beg your pardon for my vain follies,
and go back to my ware, and work, and not repine. Say it! You are
silent? Then I implore you, still as peer and gentleman, to let the
honest love sav