'
'I have liked you from the first. That you are lovely perhaps is
no merit, though, to speak the truth, I am well pleased that
Silverbridge should have found so much beauty.'
'That is all a matter of taste, I suppose,' she said, laughing.
'But there is much a young woman may do for herself, which I think
you have done. A silly girl, though she be a second Helen, would
hardly have satisfied me.'
'Or perhaps him,' said Isabel.
'Or him; and it is in that feeling that I find my chief
satisfaction,--that he should have the sense to have liked such a
one as you better than others. Now I have said it. As not being
one of us I did at first object to his choice. As being what you
are yourself, I am altogether reconciled to it. Do not keep him
long waiting.'
'I do not think he likes being kept waiting for anything.'
'I dare say not. I dare say not. And how there is one thing else.'
Then the Duke unlocked a little drawer that was close to his
hand, and taking out a ring put it on her finger. It was a bar of
diamonds, perhaps a dozen or them, fixed in a little circlet of
gold.
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