"And what has poor Mary done?"
"Never mind."
"I dare say she knows what is good for you better than you know yourself. I suppose she has told you that you might do a great deal better than trouble yourself with a wife?"
"Never mind what she has told me. It is settled now;—is it not?"
"I hope so, Will."
"But not quite settled as yet. When shall it be? That is the next question."
But to that question Clara positively refused to make any reply that her lover would consider to be satisfactory. He continued to press her till she was at last driven to remind him how very short a time it was since her father had been among them; and then he was very angry with himself, and declared himself to be a brute. "Anything but that," she said. "You are the kindest and the best of men;—but at the same time the most impatient."
"That's what Mary says; but what's the good of waiting? She wanted me to wait to-day."
"And as you would not, you have fallen into a trap out of which you can never escape. But pray let us go. What will they think of us?"
"I shouldn't wonder if they didn't think something near the truth."