More and more frequent visits to that study
became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of
them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously
piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do
so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea
that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective
suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's
decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a
glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective
brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone
together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them
extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return.
Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important
question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from
those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart
which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact
was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as
it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the
beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable
as yet in the Mesurier household.
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