“I know what I say, Tony. It was the doctor answered the letter in which Mr. M'Gruder proposed for Dolly. He said that he could not, would not, use any influence over his daughter; but that, from all he had learned of Mr. M'Gruder's character, he would give his free consent to the match.”
“Well, then, Dolly said—”
“Wait a bit, I am coming to Dolly. She wrote back that she was sorry he had not first written to herself, and she would frankly have declared that she did not wish to marry; but now, as he had addressed her father,—an old man in failing health, anxious above all things about what was to become of her when he was removed,—the case was a more difficult one, since to refuse his offer was to place herself in opposition to her father's will,—a thing that in all her life had never happened. 'You will see from this,' said she, 'that I could not bring to you that love and affection which would be your right, were I only to marry you to spare my father's anxieties. You ought to have more than this in your wife, and I cannot give you more; therefore do not persist in this suit, or, at all events, do not press it.'”
“But I remember your writing me word that Dolly was only waiting till I left M'Gruder's house, or quitted the neighborhood, to name the day she would be married. How do you explain that?”
“It was her father forced her to write that letter: his health was failing, and his irritability had increased to that degree that at times we were almost afraid of his reason, Tony; and I mind well the night Dolly came over to show me what she had written. She read it in that chair where you are sitting now, and when she finished she fell on her knees, and, hiding her face in my lap, she sobbed as if her poor heart was breaking.”
“So, in fact, she was always averse to this match?”
“Always. She never got a letter from abroad that I could n't have told it by her red eyes and swelled eyelids, poor lassie!”
“I say, 'poor fellow!' mother; for I declare that the man who marries a woman against her will has the worst of it.”
“No, no, Tony; all sorrows fall heaviest on the helpless. When at last the time came that she could bear no more, she rallied her courage and told her father that if she were to marry M'Gruder it would be the misery of her whole life. He took it very ill at first; he said some very cruel things to her; and, indeed, it was only after seeing how I took the lassie's side, and approved of all she had done, that he yielded and gave way. But he isn't what he used to be, Tony. Old age, they say, makes people sometimes sterner and harder. A grievous thing to think of, that we 'd be more worldly just when the world was slipping away beneath us; and so what do you think he does? The same day that Dolly writes that letter to M'Gruder, he makes her write to Dr. M'Candlish to say that she 'd take a situation as a governess with a family going to India which the doctor mentioned was open to any well-qualified young person like herself. 'Ye canna say that your “heart will be broke wi' treachery” here, lassie,' said her father, jeering at what she said in her tears about the marriage.”
“You oughtn't to suffer this, mother; you ought to offer Dolly a home here with yourself.”