“Oh, I am afraid to answer. You know I have such a prodigious appetite. I am afraid I should eat you out of house and home, and folks do say that you don’t often light the kitchen fire in your house. I couldn’t bear the idea of being starved.”
“You shall have anything you wish, my dear Miss Jamblin,” cried her red-haired supplicant, with a sudden impulse of prospective generosity. “You shall go shopping yourself, and marketing yourself, just whenever you please.”
“I fear, sir, I should not be stewardly enough for your wife, and that you would be too stewardly for my husband. Were it in my power to give you my hand, I must tell you candidly, Mr. Nettlethorpe, that it never would be yours. When I marry, I marry a man not a savings-box; a man who spends his money, and does good with it, and who does not keep it piled up in a heap till it decays; a man who does not think it sinful or extravagant to enjoy a few innocent pleasures, and who will give me a good dinner and eat one himself every day in the year.”
“Miss Jamblin, I am astounded. Do you suppose I am so mean that I should begrudge my wife the necessaries of life. A good dinner! You don’t suppose I am likely to starve you, or anyone else, for the matter of that?”
“I will take good care you don’t starve me, Mr. Nettlethorpe.”
“You wrong me—indeed you do. These observations are most uncalled for.”
“Are they?”
“Most certainly they are. But I see how it is—some mischievous, evil-disposed person has been prejudicing you against me——”
“No such thing;” your name has not been mentioned to me by anyone, and I am sure nobody has spoken against you. It is not at all likely.”
“Then am I to understand, madam,” exclaimed the miserly farmer, “that you decline to listen to my suit?”