“Well, brother, you know I must either laugh or cry all the time. But, seriously, if I was you I could not help loving that sweet, beautiful girl, and I believe that, like you, I would forget that she was a poor working girl. But, brother, what would the fellows in your club, the fast, nobby fellows you are always talking to me about, say if you married a shop-girl?”
Frank answered with a shiver—not a word did he speak. But he kept up a terrible thinking, and Lizzie sat still and watched him.
At last he sprang to his feet.
“The fellows in the club can go to Halifax or anywhere else they want to. If she’ll have me, and father will consent, I’ll marry her inside of a week.”
“Inside of a church would be better, brother dear. But those two provisos were well put in—the first especially. When a gentleman wants to marry one of our sex, the first and most necessary thing to find out is will she have him. And I don’t believe you have given her the first hint on the subject.”
“No,” said Frank.
“Nor even taken the trouble to find out whether she either admires or cares in the least for you?” continued Lizzie.
“That’s a fact.”
And Frank sighed while he made the admission.
“Don’t you think a little courting, as they call it, in this case would be advisable before you talk of marrying a girl whom you have seen but twice in your life?”