"But Charles, Charles," exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, pale and very much agitated, "she is not yet your wife. She considers herself as much bound to you as if she were. I know she does--I have always taught her to do so. She will never be any other's but yours. She shall be yours whenever you claim her." "Oh, dear Mrs. Effingham," said Charles, "that it were so, indeed! and not merely in name. I would claim her now--even now. But I know I am acting selfishly. I know I am acting wrongly. I should be exposing her to peril, and dangers, and discomforts, and it is better that I should go now at once, and leave love, and hope, and happiness in my native land behind me. It is better that I should go," and he dropped the hand that he held in his. "But, Lucy," said Mrs. Effingham, turning to her daughter, "have you thought of this?--Have you heard of this? What do you say, my child, for my brain is bewildered, and I scarcely know what I am doing." "I say, my dear mother," she replied earnestly, "that there is but one thing on earth that would stop me from going with him; neither perils, nor dangers, nor discomforts, nor, if it must be so, the sorrows of a life itself." "What then?" demanded Mrs. Effingham. "My mother!" replied Lucy. "To leave her to sadness, to solitude and discomfort; that--that is the only obstacle that I think ought to stand in my way." "It should not stand in the way for a moment," replied Mrs. Effingham, "were it not for other things. But think, Lucy, think of the world--think of what the good and wise, as well as the vicious and malevolent, would say." "For that, my dear mother," replied Lucy, "I should care little--secure in the approbation of my own heart. When Charles spoke of such a thing--he did not ask me, but merely spoke of it a moment ago--I thought over it all earnestly. I asked myself, were these times of trouble, such as took place in the French Revolution, or in our own Great Rebellion, and he were forced to fly so suddenly, should I not do right to go with him? should I not be applauded for so doing? Who could doubt that I should? How much more need for me to go with him now, when he has so much more need of comfort. Would the world, which says so little against the woman who, in disobedience to her parents, or in opposition to her friends, flies from her home, to be married in Scotland, would it blame me, for crossing the sea, to unite myself to the man to whom I was engaged before, with the consent of all; would it blame me, when I have so much higher objects--so much better purposes in view--when I neither oppose those who love me, nor enter into a family unwilling to receive me; when I go to share the sorrows, and the poverty, and the exile of the only man that I ever loved; and if it did blame me, ought I to value its blame? If it did censure me, should I care for its censure?"