It was with a fixed, cold look she said-- "Yes, if we are engaged." "Are we not then ?" "When is your stepmother to know it ?" she asked, rather dragging the words out one after the other.
"Dear Elizabeth! These people at home here must notice nothing for--for three months, when I shall be--" But he caught an expression now in her face, and something in the abrupt way in which she drew her hand from him, that made him keep back what he had originally intended to say, and he corrected it hastily.
"Next week, then, I'll write from Arendal and tell my father, and then let my stepmother know what I have written.

Are you offended, Elizabeth--dear Elizabeth?
or shall I do it at once ?" he broke out resolutely, and seized her hand again.
"No, no--not now! next week--let it not be till next week," she cried, in sudden apprehension, returning the pressure of his hand at the same time almost entreatingly--it was the first he had had from her.
"And then you are mine, Elizabeth ?" "Yes, then"-- she tried to avoid meeting his eye.
"Farewell, then, Elizabeth! But I shall come back on Saturday.

I can't live for longer without seeing you." "Farewell!" she said, in a rather toneless voice.
He sprang down to the boat that lay waiting for him below; but she didn't look after him, and went in with bowed head the opposite way.
Small things often weigh heavily in the world of impressions.

Elizabeth had been overpowered by what seemed to her the magnanimity of his nature when he had declared that he would elevate her into the position of his wife; she felt that it was her worth in his eyes which had outweighed all other considerations.

That he should shrink from the inevitable conflict with his family she had on the other hand never for a moment imagined.