“It’s easy enough to understand it,” replied the choleric old gentleman. “If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long ago; and besides,” added Wardle, after a moment’s hesitation, “the truth is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I would never attempt to force a girl’s inclinations) the addresses of a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that, girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr. Snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly-persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine matrimony, or charcoal. Now the question is, what’s to be done?”

“What have you done?” inquired Mr. Pickwick.