CHAPTER VIII.  CLEMENT COMES FOR HIS
ANSWER.

A FIRST declaration of love! Whenever
Mabel had indulged in day-dreams, it had
always seemed to her that the first utterance of
words of love in her ear, must surely fill the
whole world with a sort of glamour; that some
mysterious and delightful revolution would take
place in her being; and that, as the poets sing,
the sky would appear bluer, the sun brighter,
and all the world more beautiful.

These marvels were to come to pass, of course,
on the hypothesis that she too would love, and
that her maiden affection, lying coyly within her
heart of hearts, like a shut lily, would give
forth all its hidden sweetness at the warm pleading
of the beloved one, even as a bud is wooed
by the sunbeams into a perfect flower.

Mabel was only seventeen, and the practical
good sense and clear-sightedness of her character
were oddly blended with an innocent romance,
such as might have belonged to a princess
in a fairy tale. Poor Mabel !

"When she awoke on the morning after her
mother's visit to Eastfield, roused by the toneless
clangour of a cracked bell, she found no
magic glamour on the earth, no deeper azure in
the sky, no added glory in the sunshine. There
was the mean bare breakfast-room. There was
the morning psalm read aloud by Mrs. Hatchett,
on a system of punctuation peculiar to herself,
which consisted in making a full stop at the
end of each verse, whatever its sense might be.
There was Miss Dobbin; there was the ugly
Swiss governess; there was the same old dreary
round to toil through, that there had been yesterday,
and that there would be to-morrow.

Stay though! Not quite the same, for to-day
was Sunday, and though Mabel had to accompany
the children to church in the morning and
afternoon, the evening hours would be her own.
None but those who nave been subjected,
perforce, to the close companionship of utterly
uncongenial minds, can conceive the sense of
positive refreshment that fell upon Mabel when she
found herself alone: alone and unmolested, in
her bedroom, with two clear hours before her to
employ as she would.

"Is it all real?" she said to herself, as she
sat down on her bed in the chill garret, with a
shawl wrapped round her. " Is it real? I must
think."

Her interview with Clement had been so
strange and hurried, his declaration so
unexpected, and her own agitation so excessive,
that at first she had only felt stunned and bewildered,
and, as she had told Clement, " very
sorry." But by degrees a clear remembrance of
what had passed came into her mind. His look,
his words, the touch of his hand—she recalled
them all vividly.

"He said, 'I love you. I love you with my
whole heart!'"

She whispered the words in the silence of the
room; but, softly as she breathed them out,
their sound made the eloquent blood rise in her
cheek, and she put her hands before her face,
as though there were a prying witness present.

If she believed Clement's words, she owed it
to him to examine her own heart and give him
the innermost truth that it contained. But to
find that truth! Ah, that was difficult. How
different it all was from any love-story she had
ever pictured to herself!

Suddenly a thought pierced her heart like a
swift sharp knife. "What would Mr. Charlewood
say? What would Penelope say? They
would accuse her of having sought Clement, or
laid traps for him, or of stooping to scheme and
plot for the honour of an alliance with the
Charlewood family. Mabel sprang to her feet,
and paced up and down the room.

"I will go to my own people. I will follow
my own path. I will show that I can reject
vulgar wealth, and despise vulgar pride. There is
a world outside their narrow limits—a world of
art and poetry and imagination, which they can
none of them conceive or comprehend. He is
good and kind, but he cannot understand me."
The hot tears were streaming unchecked down
her face. " I do not love him. I am sure now,
that I do not love him. I will work and strive
for mamma and Dooley; and, if I fail, they will
not love me the less."

Penelope had been thoroughly right in her
judgment, when she counselled her father to rely
on Mabel Earnshaw's pride as his surest ally.

Mabel stopped at length in her restless pacing,
and, going to her trunk, unlocked it, and drew
forth the dingy, battered, precious little
Shakespeare.

At first, she could scarcely fix her attention
on the words before her. But soon the spell
mastered her. She yielded herself up to it with
all the enthusiasm of a nature peculiarly
susceptible of such influences. And the spirit of
poetry bore her up on its strong wings, above
the dust and clash and turmoil of this work-a-day
world. She came back with a mind refreshed
and strengthened, as a healthy intellect must
ever be by the legitimate exercise of its imaginative
faculties, and with a spirit calmed and
braced. She wrote to her aunt Mary, and
despatched the letter to the care of the person
mentioned by Mr. Trescott, and then waited
with what patience she might for the result.

A week, which seemed to Clement the longest
he had ever passed in his life, went by before
he was able to return to Eastfield. But at
length one morning Mabel was summoned from
her post beside the jingling superannuated
pianoforte, to Mrs. Hatchett's private parlour.
She knew perfectly well who had come to speak
with her; and though she had been preparing
herself for the interview, and had conjured up a
hundred times in her own mind the words that
she would say, yet she felt as she approached the
parlour that her thoughts were scattered, and
that her spirits were as much agitated as on that
memorable night.

"Come in, Miss Earnshaw, if you please.
Here is a gentleman who desires to speak with
you."