"In our position in life, Mary, marriage cannot be made so common as to be undertaken without foresight for the morrow. A poor gentleman is further removed from marriage than any other man."
"One knows, of course, that there will be difficulties."
"What I mean, Mary, is, that you will have to give it up."
"Never, Aunt Sarah. I shall never give it up."
"Do you mean that you will marry him now, at once, and go out to India with him, as a dead weight round his neck?"
"I mean that he shall choose about that."
"It is for you to choose, Mary. Don't be angry. I am bound to tell you what I think. You can, of course, act as you please; but I think that you ought to listen to me. He cannot go back from his engagement without laying himself open to imputation of bad conduct."
"Nor can I."
"Pardon me, dear. That depends, I think, upon what passes between you. It is at any rate for you to propose the release to him,—not to fix him with the burthen of proposing it." Mary's heart quailed as she heard this, but she did not show her feeling by any expression on her face. "For a man, placed as he is, about to return to such a climate as that of India, with such work before him as I suppose men have there,—the burden of a wife, without the means of maintaining her according to his views of life and hers—"
"We have no views of life. We know that we shall be poor."