“Parent and child ought so to live as not to have two hearts, or two modes of feeling and thinking. A common interest in all things I should think as necessary to happiness in man and wife, as between the other members of the same family. Most of all, ought neither the man nor the woman to have any unusual cause for unhappiness, the world furnishing so many of itself.”
“Am I to understand, then, Mabel, you would refuse to marry an officer, merely because he was an officer?”
“Have you a right to ask such a question, Jasper?” said Mabel smiling.
“No other right than what a strong desire to see you happy can give, which, after all, may be very little. My anxiety has been increased, from happening to know that it is your father's intention to persuade you to marry Lieutenant Muir.”
“My dear, dear father can entertain no notion so ridiculous—no notion so cruel!”
“Would it, then, be cruel to wish you the wife of a quartermaster?”
“I have told you what I think on that subject, and cannot make my words stronger. Having answered you so frankly, Jasper, I have a right to ask how you know that my father thinks of any such thing?”
“That he has chosen a husband for you, I know from his own mouth; for he has told me this much during our frequent conversations while he has been superintending the shipment of the stores; and that Mr. Muir is to offer for you, I know from the officer himself, who has told me as much. By putting the two things together, I have come to the opinion mentioned.”
“May not my dear father, Jasper,”—Mabel's face glowed like fire while she spoke, though her words escaped her slowly, and by a sort of involuntary impulse,—“may not my dear father have been thinking of another? It does not follow, from what you say, that Mr. Muir was in his mind.”
“Is it not probable, Mabel, from all that has passed? What brings the Quartermaster here? He has never found it necessary before to accompany the parties that have gone below. He thinks of you for his wife; and your father has made up his own mind that you shall be so. You must see, Mabel, that Mr. Muir follows you?”