"Jacob was not in such a hurry when he wished for Rachel."
"That was all very well for an old patriarch who had seven or eight hundred years to live."
"My dear John, you forget your Bible. Jacob did not live half as long as that."
"He lived long enough, and slowly enough, to be able to wait fourteen years;—and then he had something to comfort him in the meantime. And after all, Lady Julia, it's more than seven years since I first thought Lily was the prettiest girl I ever saw."
"How old are you now?"
"Twenty-seven,—and she's twenty-four."
"You've time enough yet, if you'll only be patient."
"I'll be patient for to-morrow, Lady Julia, but never again. Not that I mean to quarrel with her. I'm not such a fool as to quarrel with a girl because she can't like me. I know how it all is. If that scoundrel had not come across my path just when he did,—in that very nick of time, all might have been right betwixt her and me. I couldn't have offered to marry her before, when I hadn't as much income as would have found her in bread-and-butter. And then, just as better times came to me, he stepped in! I wonder whether it will be expected of me that I should forgive him?"
"As far as that goes, you have no right to be angry with him."
"But I am,—all the same."