"Say, solemn, rather, my child," answered Father George; "but for the rest: if you can love and do love, as I believe, there is happiness before you. Are you prepared, Adelaide, to bind yourself to him you love by bonds that cannot be broken?" She looked down, and the blood mounting into her cheek, then left it as pale as alabaster; but her lips moved, and in a lone tone, she said, "I am." "And you, Ferdinand," continued the priest, "are you prepared, at all risks, to wed this fair lady--not with the vehement and ardent fire of youth, though that I know you feel, but with the steadfast purpose and desire to make her reasonable happiness, your great end and object of existence; to seek it by all means, and at all times; to do her right in every word, and thought, and deed; to be to her what God intended man to be to woman, her support and strength, her protection and her comfort, more than a friend, more than a brother, more than a lover--one with herself in every good wish and purpose? Answer me thoughtfully, my son, for I take a great responsibility upon me. I counsel her to give her hand to you against every worldly custom and all human policy; and if you ever make her regret that deed, the sorrow and the shame will rest on me." "I am ready, Father," answered Ferdinand, "to take her hand as the best gift that Heaven could give me, on the conditions and in the terms you say. We are not like many others, Father, we have known each other from youth's early days, when childhood has no concealments, and the heart is without disguise. Deep affection and sincere regard have ripened, on my part at least, into love that never can change, for one whose heart I know too well to doubt that it can alter either. Whatever dangers may beset our way--and I see many--there will be none from changed affection.--But I beseech you play not with my hopes. I know not much of such things, it is true, but I have heard that there are difficulties often insuperable in the way of those who, at our age and in our circumstances, would unite their fate together." "There are, my son," answered Father George; "but in your case I have removed them. Here, under my hand," he continued, laying it as he spoke upon a roll of parchment on the table, "I have a dispensation from our Holy Father, the Pope, for your immediate marriage; and for weighty reasons which I have stated to him by the mouth of his Legate, he gives me full authority and power to celebrate it whenever occasion shall serve. No moment could be more favourable than the present--no moment when it is more needful. Dangers, my son, there may be; but they are not such as you anticipate; and watchful eyes are upon you to ward off anything that may menace; but fail not either of you, if you see the slightest cause for alarm, to give me warning by some means; and now, my children, come with me; for the night wears, and you must not be long absent."