“’Gaged to be married to any young chap?”
“You must put the question to her, Tom.”
“Ha! I don’t want to see her.”
At this Lady Jocelyn looked slightly relieved. Old Tom continued.
“Happen to have got a little money—not so much as many a lord’s got, I dare say; such as ’tis, there ’tis. Young fellow I know wants a wife, and he shall have best part of it. Will that suit ye, my lady?”
Lady Jocelyn folded her hands. “Certainly; I’ve no objection. What it has to do with me I can’t perceive.”
“Ahem!” went Old Tom. “It won’t hurt your daughter to be married now, will it?”
“Oh! my daughter is the destined bride of your ‘young fellow,’” said Lady Jocelyn. “Is that how it’s to be?”
“She”—Old Tom cleared his throat “she won’t marry a lord, my lady; but she—’hem—if she don’t mind that—’ll have a deuced sight more hard cash than many lord’s son’d give her, and a young fellow for a husband, sound in wind and limb, good bone and muscle, speaks grammar and two or three languages, and—”
“Stop!” cried Lady Jocelyn. “I hope this is not a prize young man? If he belongs, at his age, to the unco quid, I refuse to take him for a son-in-law, and I think Rose will, too.”