"Even if it be to the end of his life?"

"That is an event I never dare to call to mind. My soul shrinks back
from the thought. A good parent is immortal to a good child, I think."

She said it very calmly, but no one would have thought of disputing
her position. The still assured face partially uplifted, and the large
white hands firmly clasped upon her knee, were a kind of silent amen
to it.

Then Phyllis said "Good-night" and went away; but dim as the light
was, she took with her a certain sense of warmth and color. The long
pink dressing-gown she had worn and the pink rose in her hair had made
a kind of glow in the corner of the wide window where she had sat.
"How beautiful she is!" The words sprang spontaneously to Elizabeth's
lips; and she added to them in her thoughts, "Few girls are so lovely,
so graceful, and so clever, and yet she is as pure and unspoiled by
the world as if God had just made her."

The formal ratification of the engagement was very quietly done. The
squire had a conversation with Richard, and after it went for a long
walk in the park. When he next met his daughter he looked at her
steadily with eyes full of tears, and she went to him, and put her
arms around his neck, and whispered some assurance to him, which he
repaid with a hearty "God bless thee, Elizabeth!"

Antony was the least pleased. He had long had a friendship with George
Eltham, Lord Eltham's younger son; and among many projects which the
young men had discussed, one related to the marriage of Elizabeth.