"No. But I should have you, papa!"
"Should?"
"They have not yet parted us, dear papa."
"What does that mean?" he asked, fussily. He was in a gentle stew already, apprehensive of a disturbance of the serenity precious to scholars by postponements of the ceremony and a prolongation of a father's worries.
"Oh, the common meaning, papa," she said, seeing how it was with him.
"Ah!" said he, nodding and blinking gradually back to a state of composure, glad to be appeased on any terms; for mutability is but another name for the sex, and it is the enemy of the scholar.
She suggested that two weeks of Patterne would offer plenty of time to inspect the empty houses of the district, and should be sufficient, considering the claims of friends, and the necessity of going the round of London shops.
"Two or three weeks," he agreed, hurriedly, by way of compromise with that fearful prospect.