'Yes, yes.'
'To marry you, of course; that is—that is, if you will have me, and please Sir Piers,' he replied, with perfect deliberation and more apparent coolness than he usually felt.
'I won't consult grand-uncle on that matter, Cousin Hew. Besides, now that I think of it, I don't want to marry.'
'Indeed! I thought marriage was the sole aim of every girl's existence.'
'In novels more than in real life, perhaps. Besides, marriage is only to be thought of when the man and the hour come.'
'It is the end of all anxieties,' urged Hew, who thought no doubt of his monetary ones.
'I have none to end; and with many girls it is only the beginning of a set of troubles which none of them expect. But let us drop this very funny conversation.'
'Why?'
'You surely would not seek a wife with half a heart, or none!'
'The half of your heart, Mary, is worth the whole of any other woman's!' replied Hew, with more warmth and gallantry than he had yet shown; but the provoking Mary only laughed, and as she drew near the dovecot, some of the pigeons, to whom her figure was familiar, and whom she was wont to bring food for, came wheeling and fluttering round her, and one, after nestling in her neck—a pretty sight—alighted on her left hand, and while she stroked and fed it with the right, Hew could not but remark that the snow-white pigeon was not whiter than her slender fingers.