“Well, then, you were waiting for the missionary to come and lead your belief the right way. Now then, my dear, don’t you see this? Suppose a place where there are a dozen ladies and only one gentleman. How many can be married?”
“Why, only one lady, of course,” said Mrs Doctor.
“Exactly, my dear,” said the doctor; “but it is a moral certainty that the gentleman will be married.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” replied Mrs Doctor.
“Suppose so? Why, they’d combine and kill him for an unnatural monster if he did not marry one of them,” said the doctor, laughing. “Well, then, my dear, suppose we reverse the case, and take a young and very handsome lady to a station in an out-of-the-way part of the world, where the proportions are as one to twenty—one lady to twenty gentlemen—what is the moral result?”
“I suppose she would be sure to be married?”
“Exactly, my dear. Well, as our handsome young charge evidently thinks a very great deal about love-making—”
“A very great deal too much,” said Mrs Doctor, tartly.
“Exactly so, my dear. Well, she is going to such a place. What ought we to do?”
“See of course that she does not make a foolish match.”