"Have you? In what way have I excited your astonishment? Did I swagger too much about my purchase? did I what they call 'gush' about my place?"
"Not a bit; and if you had, there would have been every excuse for you. A more delightful old house and more perfect grounds never were seen."
"Well, then, what did I do?"
"Well, it seemed to me that you didn't regard the place from a bachelor point of view. You were planning drawing-rooms, and bedrooms, and dining-halls, and----"
"You know that my mother and sister form part of my belongings?"
"Ye-es; but I didn't hear any mention of your mother and sister, and----"
"Speak plainly, Charley, and say that you think I contemplate matrimony."
"And suppose I were to say so?"
"Suppose you were? Well, then, all I could say would be--that I felt myself a sneak for not having owned the fact before to you, my dear old friend. But in any thing out of my regular routine of business I'm as shy as a great schoolgirl; and I could not bring myself to tell even you about it."
"Then it's a case, Robert. A case at last with you, of all men in the world. I feel now that even I myself am not impregnable, after 'Bob Sobersides' has surrendered at discretion."