"Spoken nobly, and like yourself," replied the old man. "That she loves you, I doubt not; for, though unconsciously, perhaps, yet you did seek her love. That you love her well and truly, I am very sure; otherwise you would not be here to-night, Gowrie, for you came not alone to learn your fate from me. But yet I must think both for you and for her; and I will place the greatest trust in you that ever was placed in man, because I know you to be full of honour, and that she is firm in honesty and purity of heart. Yet I will exact some promises from you both--promises which, solemnly given, you will not dare to break." "I never yet broke one knowingly," replied Lord Gowrie; "and I never will. Where her fate is concerned, believe me, my good friend, a promise given would be but the more sacred." "And you are then resolved to marry her?" said Manucci. "If she can give me her whole heart," replied the earl. "Do you ask no question as to her birth, her station, her family?" said the old man. "None," replied the earl. "Love, they say, my good friend, is blind; but mine has not been so. Before my feelings towards her deserved that name, I had many opportunities of observing; and my eyes were then, at least, open. Small traits, which might have escaped many, told me great secrets of her heart and character. Her love and her devotion to yourself, seeming to merge all feelings in her duty towards you; her prompt obedience to your lightest wish, flying before command, and seeming to divine your unspoken thoughts; her tenderness towards all, even towards the wicked and the cruel, censure losing itself in pity for those who are not happy enough to be good; that true modesty which is without vain affectation, and, ignorant of evil, places no watchful guard against false appearances. All these, and many more things of the kind, I marked, and often thought, these are the qualities which will only have greater scope and shed brighter lustre in a wife; and when to these was added, each day, the perception of some new grace of person or of mind, was it possible not to love, Manucci?"