I was very glad when Seymour sat down again; when he did, he leaned his elbows on the table, and gazed in my face as if he would have read the very bottom of my soul. But hope seemed to have supplanted despair. Mr. Ridley now suddenly rose, and holding his hand to his side, cried, "Oh!" in such a comic, yet pathetic manner, that though his wife really believed he was in pain, she could not help laughing; then, seizing a candle, he went _oh-ing_ and limping out of the room, leaning on her arm, and declaring he believed he must go to bed, if we would excuse him. There was no mistaking his motive, and Seymour was not slow to profit by the opportunity thus good-naturedly offered him. "Helen!" he exclaimed, seating himself by me, and seizing my hand, "is what I heard true--am I the most wretched of men--is this hand promised to De Walden?" "No--not yet promised." "Then you mean to give it to him?" "Certainly not _now_." "Why that emphasis on _now_?" "Because I am sure I do not love him sufficiently." "And since when have you found this out?" I did not answer; but my tell-tale silence emboldened him to put his own interpretation on what I had said; and now, for the first time, unrestrained by any unwelcome witness, he passionately pleaded the interests of his own love, and drew from me an open confession of mine. Nor was there long a secret of my heart which was withheld from him; and while he rejoiced over the certainty that his rival's hopes were destroyed by this interview, I rejoiced in hearing that the conviction he had received of my affection for him, had preserved him from temptations to which he would probably otherwise have yielded. "But they are returning," cried he; "tell me where you are, and promise to see me to-morrow, my own precious Helen! Never, never was I so happy before." "Nor I," I could have added; but I believe my eyes spoke for me, and I promised to see him the next day at eleven. He had just time to resume his chair when Mr. and Mrs. Ridley returned. "I have been very unwell," said Ridley, "and am so still; but I would come back, as she would not leave me, because I was sure, what with the uneasy chairs, and Miss Pen's ugly face, you would be so fretted, Mr. Pendarves, that you would never come hither again. "'But then, my dear,' said Fanny, 'you forget they are relations, and must love each other.' "'That I deny,' said I, 'if they are not both loveable.' "'And then,' says she, 'they have not met for so long a time, and have so much to say.' "'I don't believe that,' says I: 'if so, they would have taken care to meet sooner'----but pray what has happened to you both since we went away? Well, I declare, such roses on cheeks, and diamonds in eyes! and, I protest, Miss Pen has learnt to look straight-forward, and is all dimples and smiles! and this, too, when, for aught you both knew, I might be dying!"