‘My dear child, if you are convinced that you cannot be happy in this marriage, you are free on your part to refuse him,’ said the vicar. Laura’s pale cheek crimsoned. ‘That would be to doom him to poverty, and to frustrate his cousin’s wish,’ she answered, falteringly. ‘I should hate myself if I could be so selfish as to do that.’ ‘Then, my dear girl, you must resign yourself to the alternative: and if John Treverton and you are not as passionately in love as the young people who defy their parents and run away to Gretna Green to be married--or did when I was a young man--you may at least enjoy a sober kind of happiness, and get on as well together as the princes and princesses whose marriages are arranged by cabinet councils and foreign powers.’ ‘Do you know anything about Mr. Treverton?’ asked Laura, thoughtfully. ‘Very little. He is an only son--an only child, I believe. His father and mother died while he was a boy, and he became a ward in Chancery. He had a nice little property when he came of age, and ran through it nicely, after the manner of idle young men without friends to advise and guide them. He began his career in the army, but sold out after he had spent his money. I have no idea what he has been doing since--living by his wits, I’m afraid.’ So it was settled that Laura was to remain at the Manor-house, with so many of the old servants as would suffice to keep things in good order--the servants to be paid and fed at the expense of the estate, Laura to maintain herself out of her own modest income. She was a young lady of particularly independent temper, and upon this point she was resolute. ‘The money is nobody’s money at present,’ she said. ‘I will not touch a penny of it.’ Sad as were the associations of the house, dreary as was the blank left in the familiar rooms by the absence of one revered figure, dismal as was the silence which that voice could never break again, Laura was better pleased to stay in her old home than she would have been to leave it. Even the mute, lifeless things among which she had lived so long had some part of her love, some hold upon her heart. She would have felt herself a waif and stray in a stranger’s house. Here she felt always at home. If the rooms were haunted by the shadow of the dead, the ghost was a friendly one, and looked upon her with loving eyes. She had never thwarted, or neglected, or wronged her adopted father. There was no remorse mingled with her grief. She thought of him with deepest sadness, but without pain. The vicar was anxious that Miss Malcolm should have a companion. There were plenty of homeless young women--women of spotless reputation and genteel connections--who would no doubt have been delighted to be her unsalaried companion, for the sake of a pleasant home. But Laura declared that she wanted no companion.