“As you are so very fond of me——”
“Of course I’m fond of you. Should I let you do like that if I was not?”
At the moment of her speaking he had again got his arm round her waist.
“Then I’m too charitable to allow you to postpone your happiness for a day. We’ll look at it in that way.”
“You won’t understand me, or rather you do understand me, and pretend that you don’t, which is very wrong.”
“I always was very wicked.”
“Then why don’t you make yourself better? Do not you too wish to be a widow? You ought to wish it.”
“I should like to have an opportunity of trying married life first.”
“I won’t stay any longer with you, Sir, because you are scoffing. Aunt, I’m going to bed.” Then she returned again across the room, and whispered to her lover, “I’ll tell you what, Sir, I’ll marry you on Monday, the 12th of January, if you’ll take me just as I am now; with a bonnet on, and a shawl over my dress, exactly as I walked out with you before dinner. When I made the promise, I never said anything about fine clothes.”
“You may come in an old red cloak, if you like it.”