certain restrictions in reference to the marriage, if it came off, which I should feel it my duty as a father to impose; and which I shall proceed, in short, to explain to you. As a man of the world, my dear Sir, you know as well as I do, that young ladies don’t give very straightforward answers on the subject of their prepossessions in favour of young gentlemen. But I got enough out of her to show me that you had made pretty good use of your time—no occasion to despond, you know—I leave you to make her speak plain; it’s more in your line than mine, more a good deal. And now let us come to the business part of the transaction. All I have to say is this:—if you agree to my proposals, then I agree to yours. I think that’s fair enough—Eh?”
“Quite fair, Mr. Sherwin.”
“Just so. Now, in the first place, my daughter is too young to be married yet. She was only seventeen last birthday.”
“You astonish me! I should have imagined her three years older at least.”
“Everybody thinks her older than she is—everybody, my dear Sir—and she certainly looks it. She’s more formed, more developed I may say, than most girls at her age. However, that’s not the point. The plain fact is, she’s too young to be married now—too young in a moral point of view; too young in an educational point of view; too young altogether. Well: the upshot of this is, that I could not give my consent to Margaret’s marrying, until another year is out—say a year from this time. One year’s courtship for the finishing off of her education, and the formation of her constitution—you understand me, for the formation of her constitution.”
A year to wait! At first, this seemed a long trial to endure, a trial that ought not to be imposed on me. But the next moment, the delay appeared in a different light. Would it not be the dearest of privileges to