'I hope you are not angry with me, papa,' said Madge, by and by, after her lover had bid them good night and departed, and when father and daughter were alone together.
'Angry with you? no, my love, but just a trifle disappointed. This seems to me quite a poor match for a girl with your advantages.'
'Oh, papa, Churchill has seven thousand a year: and think of our income.'
'My love, that is not the question in point. What I have to think of is the match you might have made, had it not been for this unlucky infatuation. There is Mr. Balecroft, with his palace in Belgravia, a picture gallery worth a quarter of a million, and a superb place at Windermere——'
'A man who drops his h's, papa—complains of being 'ot!'
'Or Sir Henry Featherstone, one of the oldest families in Yorkshire, with twelve thousand a year.'
'And not an idea which he has not learnt from his trainer or his jockey! Oh, papa, don't forget Tennyson's noble line,—
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool!"'
'All very well for poets to write that sort of stuff, but a man in my position doesn't like to see his daughter throw away her chances. However, I suppose I mustn't complain. Penwyn Manor is a nice enough place, I dare say.