"And there is another comfort, father," said Charlotte; "that though I hope to be married, yet I never mean to leave you. You know that well, I have often told you so," and here this grave young girl came over and kissed her father's forehead.
He smiled back at her, all the care leaving his eyes as he did so. Uncle Jasper had sprung impatiently to his feet.
"As to the lass being married," he said, "that's nothing; all women marry, or if they don't they ought to. But what was that you said, John, about writing, writing in a printed book? You were joking surely, man?"
"No, I was not," answered the father. "Go and show your uncle Jasper that last article of yours, Charlotte."
"Oh, heaven preserve us! no," said uncle Jasper, backing a pace or two. "I'm willing with all my heart to believe it, if you swear it, but not the article. Don't for heaven's sake, confront me with the article."
"There's nothing uncommon in my writing for magazines, Uncle Jasper; a great many girls do write now. I have three friends myself who——"
Uncle Jasper's red face had grown positively pathetic in its agitation. "What a place England must have become!" he interrupted with a groan. "Well, lass, I'll believe you, but I have one request to make. Tell me what you like about your wedding; go into all the raptures you care for over your wedding dress, and even over the lucky individual for whom you will wear it; tell me twenty times a day that he's perfection, that you and you alone have found the eighth wonder of the world, but for the love of heaven leave out about the books! The other will be hard to bear, but I'll endeavor to swallow it—but the books, oh! heaven preserve us—leave out about the printed books. Don't mention the unlucky magazines for which you write. Don't breathe to me the thoughts with which you fill them. Oh, if there's an awful creature under the sun 'tis a blue-stocking, and to think I should have come back from England to find such a horror in the person of my own niece!"