“No, I don’t, boy. While you were young. How about the time when she had children—how then? And I don’t believe in a man and his wife both teaching schools. A woman has got enough to do to make her husband’s home so snug that he shall think it, as he ought to do, the very best place in the whole world, and she can’t do that and teach school too. Do you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Luke, very humbly, though he did not approve of his old friend’s opinions.
“Then look here, Luke Ross, I like you, and when you can come to me and say, ‘Joseph Portlock, I have a good permanent income of five hundred a year,’ Sage, if she likes, shall be your wife.”
“Five hundred a year, sir!” faltered Luke, with a strange, unreal dread seeming to rise before him like a mist of the possibility that before then Sage’s love might change.
“Yes, my lad, five hundred a year.”
“Uncle,” said Sage, opening the door, “Mr Mallow has called to see you;” and a strange look passed between the two young men, as Cyril Mallow entered the room.