CHAPTER XI. MR ARTHUR HALDANE MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL.
SOME writers are very fond of describing interviews between betrothed persons, and there are undoubtedly readers who take a pleasure in reading such delicate details; and yet it seems strange that this should be so, with respect to the mère description of what in real life is undoubtedly tame and stupid to the looker-on; for what can be duller, or more uninteresting, except to one another, than “an engaged couple.” With what meaningless emphasis they smile; what mysterious secrets (known to every adult in the company) they interchange; and how they go blindly feeling after one another's hands under the table, whenever the opportunity offers. I think it even profane to mention such tender mysteries. Arthur Haldane and Letty Lisgard were not indeed a betrothed couple when they met upon the present occasion, but they became so before they parted. Their subject of conversation being the marriage of somebody else, it naturally enough strayed to their own. “I am not a good match for you, Letty, just at present,” said the young man frankly, during a lucid interval, “but I do not despair of removing the disparity of fortune. I am getting on in my profession better than I could have hoped for.”
“I don't see why 'disparity' of any sort, dear Arthur, should affect persons who really love one another.”
“That's my own sweet Letty,” replied the other (relapsing). “But then your family—no exertions of mine can procure for me such a pedigree as you can boast of.”
“That is a matter of genuine congratulation, Arthur. Dear Richard often makes me wish that there were no such things as ancestors. I suppose it is a dreadful heresy, but it seems to me so strange that people are not taken for what they are let their birth be what it will.”
“My Rose of Radicals!” exclaimed the young man with admiration; “your words deserve to be written in letters of gold.” And so saying, he took out his pocket-book, and, in spite of her opposition, transcribed them then and there.
“Of what possible good can that be, you dear foolish fellow?”
“I cannot say for certain, Letty,” answered he gravely. “But keep a thing long enough, and its use will come, folks say.”