"Dear uncle, do be serious with me."
"Well, then, seriously, I hope Miss Gresham will be very happy as Mrs Moffat."
"Of course you do: so do I. I hope it as much as I can hope what I don't at all see ground for expecting."
"People constantly hope without any such ground."
"Well, then, I'll hope in this case. But, uncle—"
"Well, my dear?"
"I want your opinion, truly and really. If you were a girl—"
"I am perfectly unable to give any opinion founded on so strange an hypothesis."
"Well; but if you were a marrying man."
"The hypothesis is quite as much out of my way."