"Oh, sir, I beg your pardon. I humbly beg your pardon, as Mary says, but I can't help laughing, to think how she's outwitted us." (She was going to have said, "outwitted you," but changed the pronoun.)
"Why, Sally, had you any idea she was going to fly out in this style?"
"No, I hadn't, to be sure. But if you did think of marrying her, why (if I may be so bold as to ask) did you go and tell her you had no thought of doing otherwise by her? That was what put her up at last!"
"Why I had repeatedly before led her to infer that marriage was not my object. I never dreamed she could have been so foolish as to have mistaken me, little provoking romancer though she be! So I naturally wished her to know what a sacrifice of prejudice, of—of myself, in short, I was willing to make for her sake; yet I don't think she was aware of it after all. I believe I might have any lady in Manchester if I liked, and yet I was willing and ready to marry a poor dress-maker. Don't you understand me now? and don't you see what a sacrifice I was making to humour her? and all to no avail."
Sally was silent, so he went on:
"My father would have forgiven any temporary connexion, far sooner than my marrying one so far beneath me in rank."
"I thought you said, sir, your mother was a factory girl," reminded Sally, rather maliciously.
"Yes, yes!—but then my father was in much such a station; at any rate, there was not the disparity there is between Mary and me."
Another pause.
"Then you mean to give her up, sir? She made no bones of saying she gave you up."