‘We have something to think of as well as delicacy, young man: there’s a woman’s happiness to be remembered.’
‘Here it is, now, the whole business,’ said Kearney. ‘The major there asked me yesterday to get my daughter’s consent to his addresses.’
‘And you never told me,’ cried Miss Betty.
‘No, indeed, nor herself neither; for after I turned it over in my mind, I began to see it wouldn’t do—’
‘How do you mean not do?’ asked Lockwood.
‘Just let me finish. What I mean is this—if a man wants to marry an Irish girl, he mustn’t begin by asking leave to make love to her—’
‘Mat’s right!’ cried the old lady stoutly.
‘And above all, he oughtn’t to think that the short cut to her heart is through his broad acres.’
‘Mat’s right—quite right!’
‘And besides this, that the more a man dwells on his belongings, and the settlements, and such like, the more he seems to say, “I may not catch your fancy in everything, I may not ride as boldly or dance as well as somebody else, but never mind—you’re making a very prudent match, and there is a deal of pure affection in the Three per Cents.”’