MARIE ROGERS.
Heaven knows that I do not wish to show up grandpapa in this narrative, or make the unhappy old sufferer appear worse than he was. Indeed, my desire is to write with a dispassionate pen, to state facts, and leave scientists, legal experts, and students of ethics to draw their own conclusions. But I do not intend that anything shall blind me to what I owe my grandpapa; and I will say that in the matter of Marie Rogers he was not entirely to blame. The girl set her cap at him, haunted him in the tap-room at her father's place of entertainment, sent him flowers, gushed about him to me, and did everything she could to flatter his vanity. This had always been extremely easy. He was still old enough to feel tickled by the attention of a woman of thirty. Miss Rogers had a childish prettiness of manner, which might have been effective when she was younger, but struck me as rather ridiculous now. She talked young and dressed young, and pretended a general ignorance of the seamy side of the world which took in my grandpapa completely. No doubt it had similarly deceived the life insurance agent. That young man lost his temper with Miss Rogers over the matter of my grandpapa, and received short notice in consequence.
"Gad!" said grandfather, "it's very gratifying--an old buffer of a hundred and six to cut out this youngster. What d' ye think of her, Martha? Not a day older than thirty--eh?"
"I think you are on the verge of a volcano, grandpapa. You are doing a most dangerous thing by stopping here. Already people laugh at your new piebald wig, as they call it. You ought to have left Chislehurst three months ago, as I urged you at the time."
"Well, well, let 'em laugh. Who cares? I'm sure I don't. This girl takes my fancy, and that's a fact. She's in love with me, and can't hide it, and Rogers hasn't any objection."
"Of course not; he knows what you're worth."
"I've been wondering if I could run away with her and marry her somewhere in Scotland," said grandpapa, winking at me. I did not understand the wink, and asked him what he meant.
"It doesn't matter," he answered, "only she might get tired of me when I grow younger; and I myself might fancy something a little fresher later on."
"Once and for all," I said, "this inclination towards matrimony is reprehensible and must be crushed, dear grandpapa. I implore of you to fight against it. Don't let every woman you meet fool you into a declaration. Do be circumspect; for Heaven's sake, look on ahead."
"It's brutal always asking me to do that," he answered, shedding tears, for it was one of his maudlin days; "I don't want to look ahead. The future can take care of itself. I'm spoiling for somebody who would be a comfort to me at home--somebody who would take a bright view of things and not always be ramming the future down my throat, like you do. I see no reason why I should not marry."