"
There fell another silence, longer, deeper, than the first. Then Isabel
uttered a short, hard sigh, and, stooping, kissed the bowed, curly head.
"God bless and keep you always, dearest!" she said.
Something in the words--or was it the tone?--pierced Dinah. She turned
her face slightly upwards. "I--I was afraid you wouldn't be pleased," she
faltered. "Do--do forgive me--if you can!"
"Forgive you!" All the wealth of Isabel's love was in the words. "Why,
darling, I have been wanting you for my own little sister ever since I
first saw you."
"Oh, have you?" Eagerly Dinah lifted her head. Her eyes were shining, her
cheeks very flushed. "Then you are pleased?" she said earnestly. "You
really are pleased?"
Isabel smiled at her very sadly, very fondly. "My darling, if you are
happy, I am more than pleased," she said.
Yet Dinah was puzzled, not wholly satisfied. She received Isabel's kiss
with a certain wistfulness. "I feel--somehow--as if I've done wrong," she
said. "Yet--yet--Scott--" she halted over the name, uttering it
shyly--"said he was--awfully pleased."
"Ah! You have told Scott!" There was a sharp, almost a wrung, sound in
Isabel's voice; but the next moment she controlled it, and spoke with
steady resolution. "Then, my dear, you needn't have any misgivings. If
you love Eustace and he loves you, it is the best thing possible for you
both." She held Dinah to her again and kissed her; then very tenderly
released her.
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