“Now let us tell mother.”

Her hand was still in his, and they went across the deck together.

“Mamma,” she said, “please put down that book.  I have a piece of news for you.  Frank and I are going to be married.”

Lady Greendale sat for a moment, speechless in astonishment.  She knew that Bertha had wished to tell him that she had refused Carthew’s offer, but that this would come of it she had never dreamt.  A year before she had approved of Bertha’s rejection of Frank, but since then much had happened.  Bertha had shown that she would not marry for position only, and that she would be likely to take her own way entirely in the matter; and, although this was a downfall to the hopes that she had once entertained, Lady Greendale was herself very fond of Frank, and it was at any rate better than having Bertha marry a man of whose real means she was ignorant, and who, as everyone knew, bet heavily on the turf.  These ideas flashed rapidly through her mind, and holding out one hand to each, she said: 

“There is no one to whom I could more confidently entrust her happiness, Frank.  God bless you both.”

Then she betook herself to her pocket handkerchief, for her tears came easily, and on this occasion she herself could hardly have said whether they were the result of pleasure in Bertha’s happiness, or regret at the downfall of the air castles she had once built.

“I think, Bertha, our best plan will be to go below now,” Frank suggested, quietly.

“What for?” Bertha asked, shyly.

The thing had been done.  She felt radiantly happy, but more shocked at her own boldness than she had been when she perpetrated it.

“Well, my dear, I thought that perhaps you would rather not kiss me in sight of the whole crew, and certainly I shan’t be able to restrain myself much longer.”

“Then, in that case,” she said, demurely, “perhaps we had better go below.”

It was half an hour before they came on deck again.

“Well, my dears,” Lady Greendale said, “the more I think of it the better I am pleased.  As far as I am concerned, nothing could be nicer.  I shall have Bertha within a short drive of me, and it won’t be like losing her.

“Do you know, Bertha, your father said to me once, ’I would give anything if some day Frank Mallett and our Bertha were to take a fancy to each other.  There is nothing I should like more than to have her settled near us, and there is no one I know more likely to make her happy than he would be.’  I am sure, dear, that you will be glad to know that your engagement would have had his approval, as it has mine.”

Bertha bent down and kissed her mother, with tears standing in her eyes.

“It will be a great pleasure to us both to have you so near us,” Frank said, earnestly.  “You know that, having lost my own mother so long ago, I have always looked upon you as more of a mother than anyone else, and have always felt almost as much at home in your house as in my own.