Rachel was now in that state of mind when the pleasantness of a
contemplated object excludes any inquiry whether it is true or false,
good or evil; and, in spite of Paul's fatalism, she was satisfied that
it was with Walter's own free will that he had done what he had done,
and said what he had said. The changed inscription on the locket, and
the delivery of that pledge to her, would complete the vowing of the
troth whereby she was to become his wife. Entirely ignorant of what had
taken place between the nephew and the uncle, by means of which she
might have been able to analyze his conduct, she had only the closeting
of Mr. Ainslie and Walter to suggest to her that the young man's sudden
declaration was the result of his knowledge that she was to be sole
heiress. The heart that is under the influence of love, as we have
hinted, is too credulous to the tongue of the lover to doubt the
sincerity of his professions. So all appeared well. The motives in
action were adequate to the will of the parties who used them; and as
she felt that her love was in the power of herself, so she could not
doubt that Walter's affection was the result of his approval of her good
qualities. Paul was now no longer an oracle. She would be pleased to
have an opportunity of showing him that his genius lay more in his
fingers than in his head. She had now, however, something else to do.
She went to her father's room. He was in one of those reveries to which,
as we have said, all the thinking of the extremely aged is reduced, when
the world and its figures of men and women, its strange oscillations and
changes, its passions, pleasures, and pains, seem as made remote by the
intervention of a long space--dim, shadowy, and ghost-like. It is one of
the stages through which the long-living must pass, and, like all the
other experiences of life, it is true only to one's self--it cannot be
communicated by words. "Old memories are spectres that do seem to chase
the soul out of the world,"--an old quotation which may be admitted