Hour by
hour, day by day, had his love increased for the child of his
adoption, until now she was a part of his very life, pervading
every corner and crevice of his being. He only lived for her, and
in his mighty love, he became selfishly indifferent to all else
around him. Edith was all he cared for;--to have her with him;--to
hear her voice,--to know that she was sitting near,--that by
stretching forth his hand he could lay it on her head, or feel her
beautiful cheeks,--this was his happiness by day, and when at
night he parted unwillingly from her, there was still a
satisfaction in knowing that he should meet her again on the
morrow,--in thinking that she was not far away--that by stepping
across the hall and knocking at her door he could hear her sweet
voice saying to him,
"What is it, Richard?"
He liked to have her call him Richard, as she frequently did. It
narrowed the wide gulf of twenty-one years between them, bringing
him nearer to her, so near, in fact, that bridal veils and orange
wreaths now formed a rare loveliness walked ever at his side;
clothed in garments such as the mistress of Collingwood's half
million ought to wear, and this maiden was Edith--the Edith who,
on her nineteenth birth-day, sat in her own chamber devising a
thousand different ways of commencing a conversation which she
meant to have with her guardian, the subject of said conversation
being no less a personage than Grace Atherton.
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