‘There may be truth in that you say, sir, but it goes against nature,’ said Shepley.
‘Like many a good drastic cure,’ said Barrington. ‘Come (if you will have my advice), bury this old trouble, whatever it may be, and begin life from where you are. Many a happy match hath begun coolishly, many an ill one hotly: and this is the wisdom of a man old enough to be your father.’
‘I thank you, sir; I shall give some thought to the matter,’ said Shepley, and would have changed the subject, but Barrington pursued—
‘You scarce need a proof of my goodwill; Shepley; yet I’ll give you one. There’s not another man in London to whom I would sooner give my daughter Emma than yourself.’
‘My dear sir——’
‘There, there, I have but given you a piece of my mind and something of a hint. Let the matter rest. I pray you to be in no haste: no prudent marriage was ever yet hasty, nor any hasty one prudent; time, time and thought——’
‘Yes, sir, as you say, time and thought—’tis a great step in life,’ said Shepley. But he took the older man’s hand in his as he spoke, and shook it warmly.
‘I thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘And this story you guess at—well, I give you my hand on’t that if ever I marry Emma she hears it all.’
‘Tush! keep your heart’s history to yourself,’ said Barrington, smiling. ‘The woman who supposes herself any man’s first love is a fool.’
Emma, whose name had been thus bandied between Sebastian Shepley and her father, was the younger of Dr. Barrington’s two daughters. The elder daughter, Charlotte by name, had married early, and ‘well,’ as the phrase goes, having allied her fortunes with those of a certain Sir James Mallow, who, though only a knight, was the possessor of a handsome income, and had converted Charlotte from plain Miss Barrington without a fortune to ‘My Lady’ with one. The marriage had been a source of vast gratification to Emma as well as to the fortunate Charlotte, for it seemed to be in the very blood and bones of the Barringtons to aspire in matters social. Their father’s promotion to Court practice had given these young women another help on the painful uphill path, and had made it not only possible but quite natural for them to mention persons of title frequently in conversation. Now Emma drove out daily in Lady Mallow’s coach, and dreamt of even greater splendours to come. She was an extremely pretty girl, slim and tall, with fine auburn hair and delicate colouring. ‘With her looks,’ said Lady Mallow, ‘Emma must have a baronet.’ And indeed she repeated this so often that Emma came to think of the baronet as a reality, and never contemplated the possibility of any suitor of lower degree.