Then Lucy did tell her uncle. "And you mean to live upon three hundred a year!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't know what you are talking about."
"I think Mr. Hamel knows."
"He is as ignorant as a babe unborn;—I mean about that kind of thing. I don't doubt he can make things in stone as well as anybody."
"In marble, Uncle Tom."
"Marble is stone, I suppose;—or in iron."
"Bronze, Uncle Tom."
"Very well. There is iron in bronze, I suppose. But he doesn't know what a wife will cost. Has he bought any furniture?"
"He is going to buy it,—just a little;—what will do?"
"Why should you want to bring him into this?" Lucy looked wistfully up into his face. He himself had been personally kind to her, and she found it to be impossible to complain to him of her aunt. "You are not happy here?"
"My aunt and cousins think that I am wrong; but I must be married to him now, Uncle Tom."