"So I do, but I suppose I ought not; for I'm sure I don't know what you are like yet. It seems to me that you're very fond of having your own way, sir;—and so you ought," she added; "but really you can't have your own way in that. Nobody ever heard of such a thing. Everybody would think we were mad."
"I shouldn't care one straw for that."
"Ah, but I should,—a great many straws."
He sat there for two hours, telling her of all things appertaining to himself. He explained to her that, irrespective of the brewery, he had an income sufficient to support a wife,—"though not enough to make her a fine lady like Mrs. Cornbury," he said.
"If you can give me bread and cheese, it's as much as I have a right to expect," said Rachel.
"I have over four hundred a year," said he: and Rachel, hearing it, thought that he could indeed support a wife. Why should a man with four hundred a year want to brew beer?
"But I have got nothing," said Rachel; "not a farthing."
"Of course not," said Rowan; "it is my theory that unmarried girls never ought to have anything. If they have, they ought to be considered as provided for, and then they shouldn't have husbands. And I rather think it would be better if men didn't have anything either, so that they might be forced to earn their bread. Only they would want capital."
Rachel listened to it all with the greatest content, and most unalloyed happiness. She did not quite understand him, but she gathered from his words that her own poverty was not a reproach in his eyes, and that he under no circumstances would have looked for a wife with a fortune. Her happiness was unalloyed at all she heard from him, till at last he spoke of his mother.
"And does she dislike me?" asked Rachel, with dismay.