"What can I do?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear; what can you do?"
"Why is he going to upset all the arrangements of my life, and his life, after such a fashion as this?"
"That's just what your father says."
"I suppose he can do it. The law will allow him. But the injustice would be monstrous. I did not ask him to take me by the hand when I was a boy and lead me into this special walk of life. It has been his own doing. How will he look me in the face and tell me that he is going to marry a wife? I shall look him in the face and tell him of my wife."
"But is that settled?"
"Yes, mother; it is settled. Wish me joy for having won the finest lady that ever walked the earth." His mother blessed him,—but said nothing about the finest lady,—who at that moment she believed to be the future bride of Mr. Joshua Thoroughbung. "And when I shall tell my uncle that it is so, what will he say to me? Will he have the face then to tell me that I am to be cut out of Buston? I doubt whether he will have the courage."
"He has thought of that, Harry."
"How thought of it, mother?"
"He has given orders that he is not to see you."