On reaching my lodgings I went to bed; but I might as well have sat up, for the dawn brightened into clear daylight before I closed my eyes. I lay thinking over my uncle’s scheme and abusing it, and wishing he had been born an idiot rather than that his mind should have stumbled upon an idea so peculiarly disagreeable.

What chiefly worried me was not his wish that I should marry Theresa—for really that was a matter altogether in my power, and a circumstance over which nobody but myself could have any control—but the very decided manner in which he had expressed himself against my love for Conny. I had not expected it. I felt insulted. I considered that my pride had received a wound. I had made sure that he would have welcomed my love for his daughter with irrepressible delight. He was so amiable a man, with so mild a manner, that the warm way in which he had attempted to annihilate my hopes impressed and affected me as if he had flown in a passion.

But I needn’t inflict all my thoughts upon you. It is enough to say that before falling asleep I had made up my mind to allow no earthly power to sunder me from my adored, and marry me to a woman I already disliked before having seen.

My uncle was very friendly next day, but did not allude to the subject of our evening’s conversation. He asked me to dine with him, and I consented; for I wanted to talk to my aunt, and get her advice and sympathy. I felt very much disposed to be cool and haughty with my uncle, to let all the fine gentleman that was pent up in my bosom fly out, and resent his ruthless intrusion on what a young lady once called in my hearing, “The innermost recesses of the most secret shrine within the holy of holies of the heart’s core.” But his amiability disarmed me. The antiseptic dews of his generous nature fell upon my temper, and kept it sweet in spite of my earnest belief that the sleeping lion inside me ought to get up, stiffen his tail, and shake the forests.

My aunt and Conny were out when I got to Grove End, and did not return until twenty minutes before dinner-time, so that I could have no conversation until we had dined. At table, I was very calm and pensive, and felt so sentimental, that I think, had I been asked, I could have written an ode fit to appear in any private album. I watched Conny incessantly: too much so, I fear, for I believe I embarrassed her. I wish she had laughed: I wish she had sneered: I wish she had insulted me. I wanted steeling. But no! she gave me thrilling looks, kept her countenance, and eat so languidly, that my heart leapt up, like Wordsworth’s when he saw the blue sky; I believed that her father’s scheme had been unfolded to her, and that the fear of losing me had taught her to know she LOVED!

Neither my uncle nor aunt conversed with their wonted ease. A cloud overhung us. I noticed that, when Thomas spoke, his wife grew absent; that when he addressed her, she grew disdainful. Yes! there had been a quarrel; no, not a quarrel, but an argument.

“She’s a woman,” I thought, regarding her affectionately; “and all women are on the side of sentiment versus lucre; passion versus fine houses: emotion versus Gillow’s furniture. She will be my friend: fight for me against her husband, and Dick, and Teazer: save me from being married in spite of my screams, and finally hand me victorious to her lovely, blushing Conny.”After dinner my uncle asked me to smoke a cigar with him in the library. I thanked him, and declined. I wanted to get to my aunt, and felt as if the smell of a cigar would make me ill.

“Why, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, looking at me earnestly. “Not smoke!”

“Sometimes I don’t care about smoking,” said I.

“So much the better. I have often thought that you smoke too much. Where are you going?”

“Into the grounds. I find this room uncommonly warm.”

“By the way, I mentioned our conversation to my wife, and I am mortified to find her opposed to the scheme. The fact is, women never will take practical views. They don’t seem able to understand that money is necessary for life; and many of them, I am persuaded, believe that their husbands have nothing to do, when a bill comes in, but to go out of doors and pick enough money out of the soil to pay it with. I can quite understand her liking you so well as to regret that it is out of our power to sanction your marriage with Conny; but I can’t understand her thinking such a match desirable, when she knows that—through no fault of yours—you couldn’t support a wife.”

“I’d rather talk in the open air,” I answered. “This room is very oppressive.”

“Very well. I’ll follow you presently. I am very glad to see that you are beginning to take to my scheme kindly.”“I!” but I wouldn’t argue.

“The simple fact is,” he continued, “that my wife, like all mothers, is jealous of anybody receiving the attention which she thinks her daughter has a right to before all other young ladies. If it came to the point, you would find her as averse to your marriage with Conny as I am; but as it hasn’t come to the point, she frets—the silly woman!—over the idea of Theresa getting the admiration which she claims for her girl.”

“She needn’t,” said I. “However, you’ll join me presently.” And I went out.

Conny was on the lawn, but my aunt was in the drawing-room.

“Well, aunt,” I exclaimed, bluntly, taking a seat beside her, “what do you think of your husband’s scheme?”“It is all fudge and nonsense,” she answered. “He was angry with me last night after you left, for having concealed my suspicions from him that you were fond of Conny. But, as I told him, I choose to have my secrets as well as he.”

“I am not going to marry Theresa,” I said. “I am not going down to a man’s house to make love to his daughter, and ask her to be my wife, as if I were a curiosity-dealer taking a journey in order to drive a bargain for a piece of china. My uncle knows that I am in love with Conny, and, although he pooh-poohs me, never will he get me to alter my sentiments, and forsake her for a woman who shoots pistols!”

“Thomas knows my sentiments about his scheme,” said my aunt, with a toss of her head. “I am only surprised that two brothers should put their noses together and discuss marriage as if it were a matter of buying and selling. Were Richard to ask my opinion—though he never would, for he has a most degraded notion of women’s minds—I shouldn’t scruple to tell him that he was acting in a most unfatherly manner in making his fortune the chief attraction of his daughter, instead of insisting that she should be loved only for herself.”

“My sentiments to a t!” I cried, grasping her hand, “and I honour you for having the courage to express them.”

“But it is too true,” she continued, “that men who have been mixed up all their lives in business matters become at last unable to take any but a mercenary view of life.”“Yes, and the worst is, that commercial views of things are always so disagreeable to one’s wishes. Mustn’t this be an abominable world where you are not allowed to put one leg before the other, unless you can pull out your purse, and show you have enough in it to pay for the privilege of walking!”

“Odious!”

“Talk of man!” I cried. “Why, man is the most miserable of all created things. Birds, and fish, and animals, come into the world already clothed; all degrees of temperature are pretty much alike to them; they are prepared for changes. Their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers lie scattered for them upon the face of the world, and all they have to do is to eat and drink. They may pair without anybody’s consent; they’ve got no relations to interfere, and no marriage settlements to make them hate each other. But man is born naked, with a skin so sensitive that heat and cold give him equal tortures. He has got to dig for his food, without being sure of finding any. He is kicked if he hasn’t money, and is plundered if he has. If he falls in love with a woman, it is a hundred to one that he marries somebody else, for thousands of obstacles are piled up in his way. Worse than all, he’s cursed with thought and memory; so that, however happy he tries to be in the present, there’s always misery enough in the past to poison his existing bliss, and uncertainty enough in the future to make him dread to look forward.”

Saying which I ground my teeth.

“It is all too true,” replied my aunt, dolefully; “and there can be no doubt that man is a wretch in more senses than one. But I wouldn’t be cast down if I were you. You have a friend in me.”

“Thanks—thanks; I know I have.”

“And it really needn’t follow that, because you visit your other cousin at Thistlewood, you need marry her.”

“Certainly not. No human power—but I won’t boast. Time shall prove. Your husband’s scheme wouldn’t give me a moment’s uneasiness, if it were not for the decided objection he expressed to my loving Conny. For who could force me to marry Theresa if I declined?” And I folded my arms and fixed a steady gaze on my aunt’s cap.

“Oh, as to my husband, leave him to me,” said my aunt, with a profound nod. “It is true that he can sometimes have his secrets; but,” she added, proudly, “I can always have my way.”

“He objects because I am poor.”

“Yes, he told me his reasons this morning, and I gave him mine for wishing to see you my daughter’s husband. I warned him against Mr. Curling. I said, ‘I have eyes in my head, and can see that Charlie will make her happy. But if you drive your nephew into loving another woman, as sure as you are a man, Conny will grow sentimental again over your cashier. How are you to help it?’ I asked him. ‘You bring no young men to the house: she sees no society; if she isn’t actually in love with Charlie, she told me enough to persuade me that it will not be long before she loves him.’ But he pish’d and pshaw’d, and pooh-pooh’d me down, and told me I was interfering, and that I was foolish to imagine for a moment that there had been anything serious between Conny and Mr. Curling. You’d be surprised to know how very stubborn Thomas can be when he likes.”

“What,” I asked, “is there to prevent him from making me a partner? He means that I should join him if I marry Theresa; what’s to prevent me joining him should I marry Conny? Perhaps if you were to suggest this to him, it might give him an idea.”

“I’ll not touch upon the bank nor discuss the matter in a mercenary way at all. Thomas knows very well what he can afford; and I should certainly think it very hard if, after working all these years, and obliging me to be polite to objectionable people merely for their custom, he hasn’t money enough to enable his daughter to marry the man of my choice. I am quite content to threaten him with Mr. Curling. He has a very good opinion of my judgment, and I often hear him repeating my remarks for his own, forgetting where he got them.”

Here unfortunately we were interrupted by his entering the room, followed by Conny. Had it not been for her daughter’s presence, I believe that my aunt would have attacked her husband pretty freely, for she had worked herself up into a great state of excitement, and stood in no need of further provocation to speak her mind. He perfectly well knew what we had been talking about, and deprecated his wife’s stern gaze with a bland smile; then expressed his surprise to find me indoors after my recent complaint of the heat.

I liked him so well, was under so many obligations to him, and was so sensible that, though his scheme was entirely obnoxious to me, he had nevertheless contrived it in the generous hope of forwarding my interests, that it was quite impossible for me to be reserved or cool to him. I told him that I should be glad to smoke a cigar out of doors, a proposal he eagerly welcomed, being, as I could see, extremely anxious to avoid any discussion with his wife in my presence. I thought, when we were alone, that he would ask me what my aunt and I had been talking about, and made up my mind to answer him freely. Instead, he resolutely avoided the subject. Conny joined us: and, after a quarter of an hour’s conversation, he returned to the house, leaving me alone with my cousin.

“I wonder your papa allows us to be alone,” said I. “He ought to keep between us, since he so strongly objects to my loving you.”

“How dreadfully plain-spoken you are, Charlie. You oughtn’t to talk to me in this manner.”

“You know I love you,” I answered, “and your father knows it, and everybody knows it. What’s the use of concealment, then?”

“I suppose,” said she, with delicious coyness, “papa thinks there would be no use in his interfering between us for once only, since you are here every day, and can be with me when he is away.”“Do you know,” I asked, looking at her askew, “that your papa and I had a—a conversation last night after we left you?”

“Indeed!”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Mamma said something about it this morning.”

“I told him that after I had won your love, I should want to marry you: and he said, it was out of the question.”

“Why will you talk about loving and marrying me?” she asked, a little peevishly; and then instantly changing her tone, and letting me look down deep into her eyes, she said, “How do you know I will ever marry you?”

“I’ll make you love me.”

“Don’t speak so fiercely. You quite frighten me.”“Oh, Conny, for God’s sake don’t jest with my feelings,” I groaned.

“You want people to love you at first sight.”

“People!!”

“You promised that you wouldn’t speak to me about—about your feelings again until I gave you leave.”

“And I’d have kept my word, if your father hadn’t told me he would not sanction our marriage.”

“I should hope he wouldn’t sanction it yet.”

“How can you talk like that? But I didn’t ask him to sanction it. In fact, I don’t remember speaking about our marriage. He wanted me to make love to Theresa, and I told him that was impossible, because I was in love with you. And I shall always consider—fond as I am of him—that he spoke to me rather heartlessly.”

“Why do you object to do what he wants?” she inquired, with a slight raising of the eyebrows, which was peculiar to her, and which made a complete conundrum of the expression that her face might happen to wear.

“Why do you ask? You know.”

“Have you heard that she is very pretty?”

“There is only one pretty woman in the world, and her name is Conny.”

She could not help looking pleased; a bright colour came into her face, and she was silent. When I peeped at her again, the colour had faded, and she was as pensive and down-looking as any nun.

“Conny,” I whispered, in my softest voice, “if you will only tell me you love me, and will consent to marry me, your father must give way. The decision that is to make me supremely happy or supremely miserable rests with you, not with him.”

“Charlie,” she answered, in a voice a very great deal softer than mine, “you must give me time. Some of these days I may be able to answer you decisively; but you must never talk of making me love you, for if I don’t turn to you naturally, I shall never turn to you at all. Besides, you ought to see Theresa. You might like her better than me——”

“Oh! oh!”

“You might find her a far more suitable wife than ever I could make you, and might think her infinitely prettier.”

“I might become a king. I might take the moon out of the sky, and put it in my pocket. And I mightn’t.”

“At all events I am determined not to hear another word from you until you have seen her. You must be tried a little before I make up my mind. The old saying is, ‘no man can be considered honest until he has been tempted.’”

“If that is your opinion of me,” said I, “it is quite right that I should go to Thistlewood. I want to be tested. I only hope that I may find Theresa perfectly beautiful, and thoroughly womanly, and brilliantly clever, and superfine in every point, to prove that, compared to you, she will be no more to me than that bush.”

“Very well; and now, not another word until you come back. Give me your word.”“All right,” I groaned. “But I wish you’d let me take away some little remembrance, some dear promise, some sweet word of hope, to comfort me in my absence.”

She laughed, blushed, turned pale, looked at me, shook her head, and exclaimed,

“No—it is too late; you have pledged your word, and you mustn’t ask me for a sign of any kind until you return from Thistlewood.”

And the evasive little creature, with her hair shining like spangles in the rays of the setting sun, danced a minuet across the lawn, and vanished within the house.