"Oh, Arthur, and so it is. What will you do? How will you live? Adela has got just two thousand pounds—about seventy or eighty pounds a year. And your fellowship will be gone. Oh, Arthur, how will all the mouths be fed when you have six or seven children round you?"
"I'll tell you what my plans are. If Adela should accept me—"
"Oh, accept you! She'll accept you fast enough," said Mrs. Wilkinson, with the venom with which mothers will sometimes speak of the girls to whom their sons are attached.
"It makes me very happy to hear you say so. But I don't know. When I did hint at the matter once before, I got no encouragement."
"Psha!" said Mrs. Wilkinson.
This sound was music to her son's ears; so he went on with the more cheerfulness to describe his plans.
"You see, mother, situated as I am, I have no right to expect any increase of income, or to hope that I shall ever be better able to marry than I am now."
"But you might marry a girl who had something to help. There is Miss Glunter—"
"But it so happens that I am attached to Adela, and not to Miss Glunter."
"Attached! But, of course, you must have your own way. You are of age, and I cannot prevent your marrying the cook-maid if you like. What I want to know is, where do you mean to live?"