"You must want things if you are to be married in March or April."
"But I shan't be married in March or April. Oh, mamma, pray don't."
"In a week's time or so you must tell Larry. After all that has passed of course he won't expect to have to wait long, and you can't ask him. Kate, my dear,"—Kate had just entered the room,—"go into the office and tell your father to come into breakfast in five minutes. You must know, Mary, and I insist on your telling me."
"When I said two months,—only it was he said two months—"
"What difference does it make, my dear?"
"It was only because he asked me to put it off. I knew it could make no difference."
"Do you mean to tell me, Mary, that you are going to refuse him after all?"
"I can't help it," said Mary, bursting out into tears.
"Can't help it! Did anybody ever see such an idiot since girls were first created? Not help it, after having given him as good as a promise! You must help it. You must be made to help it."
There was an injustice in this which nearly killed poor Mary. She had been persuaded among them to put off her final decision, not because she had any doubt in her own mind, but at their request, and now she was told that in granting this delay she had "given as good as a promise!" And her stepmother also had declared that she "must be made to help it,"—or in other words be made to marry Mr. Twentyman in opposition to her own wishes! She was quite sure that no human being could have such right of compulsion over her. Her father would not attempt it, and it was, after all, to her father alone, that she was bound by duty. At the moment she could make no reply, and then her father with the two girls came in from the office.