"I only told you that so as you shouldn't think there was anything funny about it. I never saw a man so dead in earnest, and he's a religious man, too."
"Well, I'm not," Jenny retorted. "I don't see what religion's got to do with marrying."
"You come to think of it, Miss Raeburn, it's not such a bad offer. I don't believe you could meet with a safer man than Zack. I suppose if he's worth a dollar, he's worth three hundred pounds a year, and that's comfortable living in Cornwall."
"But he's old enough to be my father," Jenny contended.
"He looks older than what he is," continued Mr. Corin plausibly. "Actually he isn't much more than thirty-five."
"Yes, then he woke up," scoffed Jenny.
"No, really he isn't," Corin persisted. "But he's been a big worker all his life. Thunder and sleet never troubled him. And, looking at it this way, you know the saying, '’Tis better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave.'"
"But I don't like him—not in the way that I could marry him." Jenny had a terrible feeling of battered down defenses, of some inexorable force advancing against her.
"Yes; but you might grow to like him. It's happened before now with maids. And look, he's willing for 'ee to have your sister to live with you, and that means providing for her. What 'ud become of her if anything happened to you or your father?"
"She could go and live with my sister Edie or my brother."