“I am very angry,” pouted the maid.
“In heaven's name, why?” questioned the bachelor.
“You have, so to speak, bought me.”
“Impossible: your price is prohibitive.”
“Indeed, when a thousand pounds—”
“You are worth fifty and a hundred times as much. Pooh!”
“That interjection doesn't answer my question.”
“I don't think it is one which needs answering,” said the young man lightly; “there are more important things to talk about than pounds, shillings, and sordid pence.”
“Oh, indeed! Such as—”
“Love, on a day such as this is. Look at the sky, blue as your eyes; at the sunshine, golden as your hair.”
“Warm as your affection, you should say.”
“Affection! So cold a word, when I love you.”
“To the extent of one thousand pounds.”
“Lucy, you are a—woman. That money did not buy your love, but the consent of your step-father to our marriage. Had I not humored his whim, he would have insisted upon your marrying Random.”