“Ah, Mark, Master Armytage is himself in a very small Way of Business—nothing at all to compare with Mistress Glossop’s. We love and esteem them for old Acquaintance sake, but she looks quite down upon them. There are so many small Haberdashers on the Bridge!”
“Well, the smaller he is, the less Reason he will have to look down upon me. I suppose you don’t mean to say, Cherry, that no young Man thinks of Marriage unless he is better off than I am?”
“So far from it, Mark, that I cannot see what Right the Armytages have to expect a better Match for their Daughter; and therefore I think it a Pity there should be any Concealment.”
“Marry come up!” cries he, “I would rather draw a Double-tooth for a fiery Dragon than tell Master Armytage I was Suitor for his sweet Wi-let!”
“Why, you will have to tell him sooner or later,” said I.
“Not ... not if we wait till he dies,” said Mark.
“Dies! oh, Mark!”——
“It’s ill, reckoning on dead Men’s Shoes, I own,” said he, looking rather ashamed.
“It’s unfeeling and indelicate in the highest Degree,” said I. “Why should not Violet tell her Father?”
“Ah, Cherry, she will not; and what’s more, she has made me solemnly promise that I will not, at present; so you see there’s no more to be said. We must just go on, hoping and waiting, as many young Couples have done before us; knowing that we love one another—and is not that, for a While at least, enough?”