last to know what
happiness I could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more; for I was always
to remember that I owed him nothing, and that he was my debtor, and for very
much. He had often thought of our future; and, foreseeing that the time must
come, and fearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age)
would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, had become
accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. If I felt that I could
ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if I felt
that I could happily and justly become the dear companion of his remaining life,
superior to all lighter chances and changes than Death, even then he could not
have me bind myself irrevocably, while this letter was yet so new to me; but,
even then, I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in the
opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in
the old name by which I called him. And as to his bright Dame Durden and little
housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew.
    This was the substance of the letter; written throughout with a justice and
a dignity, as if he were indeed my responsible guardian, impartially
representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his integrity he stated
the full case.
    But he did not hint to me, that when I had been better-looking, he had had
this same proceeding in his thoughts, and had refrained from it. That when my
old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he could love me just as
well as in my fairer days. That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock.
That his generosity rose above my disfigurement, and my inheritance of shame.
That the more I stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in
him to the last.
    But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of the
benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but one thing to
do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly, and what had I
wished for the other night but some new means of thanking him?
    Still I cried very much; not only in the fulness of my heart after reading
the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect - for it was strange