A Yuletide Dream

by Julie Cooper

“Naturally, I outgrew such notions, ma’am.” “You were six!” she cried. “The Wentworths’ party was a senseless, stupid reason for beating our only child, and I did not see it! I am so very sorry!”

I met you perhaps a year or so too soon. But my heart, once truly given, could never stray. It is yours, though you no longer need nor want it. I could never marry another; I cannot seem to get out of the habit of belonging to you.”

“For my own part, it is many weeks since I have considered Miss Elizabeth as unequalled, in appearance or deportment, by any lady of my acquaintance.”

“May I drive you back?” he asked. “I begged Bingley to see that my sister and yours all reached home safely. I received your father’s permission to ask to see you home to Longbourn after the service.” He smiled somewhat ruefully. “He said that he dared not refuse me, but he hoped that you might.”

“The world, in general, will have too much sense to join in. In my day, one simply asked the girl to marry him, instead of talking her to death.”

“I am afraid you heard only the smallest part of my mother’s enthusiasm. You may want to stay at Netherfield until she has calmed, lest she insist upon you procuring a licence and at once.” “Rather, I shall encourage her and her effusions most warmly, to counter your father’s disapproval.”

“It occurs to me,” he said, looking down at her with all seriousness, “that there is one thing I neglected to mention, above everything else—I do love you, you see. I ought to have begun with that.” “I was beginning to suspect something of the sort,” she said impishly, arrested by his gaze.

The End (or, The Beginning, depending upon how one looks at it)