Country Lodgings | Page 6

"He loves me!" she said; "he has told me that he loves me!"
"Well?"
"And I have referred him to you. That clause----"
"He already knows it." And then I told her, word for word, what had
passed.
"He knows of that clause, and he still wishes to marry me! He loves me
for myself! Loves me, knowing me to be a beggar! It is true, pure,
disinterested affection!"
"Beyond all doubt it is. And if you could live upon true love----"
"Oh, but where that exists, and youth, and health, and strength, and
education, may we not be well content to try to earn a living together?
think of the happiness comprised in that word! I could give lessons;--I
am sure that I could. I would teach music, and drawing, and
dancing--anything for him! or we could keep a school here at
Upton--anywhere with him!"
"And I am to tell him this?"
"Not the words!" replied she, blushing like a rose at her own
earnestness; "not those words!"
Of course, it was not very long before M. le Comte made his
appearance.
"God bless her, noble, generous creature!" cried he, when I had

fulfilled my commission. "God for ever bless her!"
"And you intend, then, to take her at her word, and set up school
together?" exclaimed I, a little provoked at his unscrupulous acceptance
of her proffered sacrifice. "You really intend to keep a lady's
boarding-school here at the Court?"
"I intend to take her at her word, most certainly," replied he, very
composedly; "but I should like to know, my good friend, what has put
it into her head, and into yours, that if Helen marries me she must needs
earn her own living? Suppose I should tell you," continued he, smiling,
"that my father, one of the richest of the Polish nobility, was a favourite
friend of the Emperor Alexander; that the Emperor Nicholas continued
to me the kindness which his brother had shown to my father, and that I
thought, as he had done, (gratitude and personal attachment apart,) that
I could better serve my country, and more effectually ameliorate the
condition of my tenants and vassals, by submitting to the Russian
government, than by a hopeless struggle for national independence?
Suppose that I were to confess, that chancing in the course of a
three-years' travel to walk through this pretty village of yours, I saw
Helen, and could not rest until I had seen more of her;--supposing all
this, would you pardon the deception, or rather the allowing you to
deceive yourselves? Oh, if you could but imagine how delightful it is to
a man, upon whom the humbling conviction has been forced, that his
society is courted and his alliance sought for the accidents of rank and
fortune, to feel that he is, for once in his life, honestly liked, fervently
loved for himself, such as he is, his own very self,--if you could but
fancy how proud he is of such friendship, how happy in such love, you
would pardon him, I am sure you would; you would never have the
heart to be angry. And now that the Imperial consent to a foreign
union--the gracious consent for which I so anxiously waited to
authorize my proposals--has at length arrived, do you think," added the
Count, with some seriousness, "that there is any chance of reconciling
this dear Helen to my august master? or will she still continue a rebel?"
At this question, so gravely put, I laughed outright "Why really, my
dear Count, I cannot pretend to answer decidedly for the turn that the

affair might take; but my impression--to speak in that idiomatic English,
more racy than elegant, which you pique yourself upon
understanding--my full impression is, that Helen having for no reason
upon earth but her interest in you, ratted from Conservatism to
Radicalism, will for the same cause lose no time in ratting back again.
A woman's politics, especially if she be a young woman, are generally
the result of feeling rather than of opinion, and our fair friend strikes
me as a most unlikely subject to form an exception to the rule.
However, if you doubt my authority in this matter, you have nothing to
do but to inquire at the fountain-head. There she sits, in the arbour. Go
and ask."
And before the words were well spoken, the lover, radiant with
happiness, was at the side of his beloved.

End of Project Gutenberg's Country Lodgings, by Mary Russell
Mitford
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