"As soon as prudence will permit and the lady will consent. Miss Brown has never been used to hardship. For myself, I should little care what privations I might be called on to bear, but I could hardly endure to see her in want."
"My advice to you is this. If you mean to marry her, do it at once. If you and she together can't manage the old man, you can't be worth your salt. If you can do that, then you can throw Jones overboard."
"I am not in the least afraid of Jones."
"Perhaps not; but still you'd better mind your P's and Q's. It seems to me that you and he and the young women are at sixes and sevens, and that's the reason why old Brown is able to nobble the money."
"I certainly should be happier," said Robinson, "if I were married, and things were settled."
"As to marriage," said Poppins, "my opinion is this; if a man has to do it, he might as well do it at once. They're always pecking at you; and a fellow feels that if he's in for it, what's the good of his fighting it out?"
"I should never marry except for love," said Robinson.
"Nor I neither," said Poppins. "That is, I couldn't bring myself to put up with a hideous old hag, because she'd money. I should always be wanting to throttle her. But as long as they're young, and soft, and fresh, one can always love 'em;—at least I can."
"I never loved but one," said Robinson.
"There was a good many of them used to be pretty much the same to me. They was all very well; but as to breaking my heart about them,—why, it's a thing that I never understood."