“Allow me to assure you, Madam, that your welfare is in my eyes a matter of infinite concern.”
“So you said, Sir,” was Phoebe’s cool reply, Mr Welles was very uncomfortable. Had he made any mistake? Was it possible that, after all, the creature was not coming round in an orthodox manner?
“Madam, give me leave to assure you, moreover, that I am infinitely attached to you, and desire no higher happiness than to be permitted to offer you my service.”
It was an instant before Phoebe recognised that Mr Marcus Welles was actually making her an offer. When she did, her answer was immediate and unmistakable.
“Don’t you, Mr Welles?” said Phoebe. “Then I do!”
“Madam, have you misapprehended me?” demanded her suitor, to whom the idea of any woman refusing him was an impossibility not to be entertained for a moment.
“I should be glad if I had,” said Phoebe.
“You must be labouring under some mistake, Madam. I have an estate which brings me in three thousand a year, and I am my own master. ’Tis not an opportunity a maid can look to meet with every day, nor is it every gentlewoman that I would ask to be my wife.”
“No—only a golden one!” said Phoebe.
“Madam!”