MRS. DALE.—“Ah!”
DR. RICCAROCCA.—“The squire is of course the head of the family.”
MRS. DALE (absent and distraite).—“The squire—yes, very true—quite proper.” (Then, looking up, and with naivete) “Can you believe me? I never thought of the squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many English prejudices, that really—dear me, how vexatious that it should never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant, it is not like being her father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and—but, as you say, it is quite proper that he should be consulted as the head of the family.”
DR. RICCASOCCA.—“And you think that the Squire of Hazeldean might reject my alliance! Pshaw! that’s a grand word indeed,—I mean, that he might object very reasonably to his cousin’s marriage with a foreigner, of whom he can know nothing, except that which in all countries is disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal,—poverty.”
MRS. DALE (kindly)—“You misjudge us poor English people, and you wrong the squire, Heaven bless him! for we were poor enough when he singled out my husband from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his neighbour and his friend. I will speak to him fearlessly—”
DR. RICCABOCCA.—“And frankly. And now I have used that word, let me go on with the confession which your kindly readiness, my fair friend, somewhat interrupted. I said that if I might presume to think my addresses would be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I was too sensible of her amiable qualities not to—not to—”
MRS. DALE (with demure archness).—“Not to be the happiest of men,—that’s the customary English phrase, Doctor.”
RICCABOCCA (gallantly).—“There cannot be a better. But,” continued he, seriously, “I wish it first to be understood that I have—been married before!”
MRS. DALE (astonished).—“Married before!”
RICCABOCCA.—“And that I have an only child, dear to me,—inexpressibly dear. That child, a daughter, has hitherto lived abroad; circumstances now render it desirable that she should make her home with me; and I own fairly that nothing has so attached me to Miss Hazeldean, nor so induced my desire for our matrimonial connection, as my belief that she has the heart and the temper to become a kind mother to my little one.”