"Did I not? I am sure you knew what it was that I intended to ask."
Florence could not but think that this was quite another thing. "Oh,
Florence, can you love me?" Had she given her ears for it she could not
have told him the truth then, on the spur of the moment. Her mother's
eye was, she knew, watching her through the door-way all the way across
from the other room. And yet, had her mother asked her, she would have
answered boldly that she did love Harry Annesley, and intended to love
him for ever and ever with all her heart. And she would have gone
farther if cross-questioned, and have declared that she regarded him
already as her lord and master. But now she had not a word to say to
him. All she knew was that he had now pledged himself to her, and that
she intended to keep him to his pledge. "May I not have one word," he
said,--"one word?"
What could he want with a word more? thought Florence. Her silence now
was as good as any speech. But as he did want more she would, after her
own way, reply to him. So there came upon his arm the slightest possible
sense of pressure from those sweet fingers, and Harry Annesley was on a
sudden carried up among azure-tinted clouds into the farthest heaven of
happiness.
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