"The angelic Julia must be infinitely indebted to you, Mr. Thurston; but let us take up this affair in order. What am I to understand, sir, by your being referred?"
"That Miss Julia, in answer to my suit, has referred me to you, sir."
"Then, so far as she herself is concerned, you wish me to understand that she accepts you?"
"Certainly—she accepted, some time since, with as heavenly a 'yes' as ever came from the ruby lips of love."
"Indeed! This is so new to me, sir, that you must permit me to see my daughter a moment, ere I give a definite answer."
Hereupon Mr. Monson left the room, and Tom began to THINK again.
"Well," he thought, "things DO go on swimmingly at last. This is the first time I could ever get at a father, though I've offered to six-and-twenty girls. One does something like a living business with a father. I don't know but I rather overdid it about the dollar, though it's according to rule to seem disinterested at first, even if you quarrel like furies, afterwards, about the stuff. Let me see—had I best begin to screw him up in this interview, or wait for the next? A few hints, properly thrown out, may be useful at once. Some of these old misers hold on to every thing till they die, fancying it a mighty pleasant matter to chaps that can't support themselves to support THEIR daughters by industry, as they call it. I'm as industrious as a young fellow can be, and I owe six months' board, at this very moment. No—no—I'll walk into him at once, and give him what Napoleon used to call a demonstration."
The door opened, and Mr. Monson entered, his face a little flushed, and his eye a little severe. Still he was calm in tone and manner. Julia had told him all in ten words.
"Now, Mr. Thurston, I believe I understand this matter," said the father, in a very business-like manner; "you wish to marry my daughter?"
"Exactly, sir; and she wishes to marry me—that is, as far as comports with the delicacy of the female bosom."