And here, to make the matter sure, he writes against her name one pro for what she possibly may be, and one con for what she probably will not be!
“Then I love her better than anything else in the known world. I do, that’s a fact; but she’s young—only fourteen—and before she’s old enough to marry she may change forty times, and that would kill me dead.”
Puts down one pro for his own love, and one con for Rose’s possible inconstancy.
“But she is poor—or, her father, they say, is worth only about $5,000! He already has nine children, and there’s time enough for three or four more:—thirteen into five thousand makes—Long Division, a rule I never fancied; too poor altogether!”
And against Rose’s name there is con No. 3, long and black, with the shadow of her four unborn brothers, who, by the way, never came in for a share of the $5,000.
“Then her family connections, I do not suppose, are such as would add anything to my influence. Good, respectable people, no doubt, but not known in the world like the Hungerfords, Dell Thompson’s maternal relatives. To be sure, I once heard Rose speak of an uncle who resides in Boston, but I dare say he’s some grocer or mechanic, living on a back street; while Dell’s uncle, from the same city, must be a man of wealth and importance, judging by the figure his wife cuts when she visits the captain.”
Here Dell received a pro for the Hungerford blood flowing in her veins, while Rose had a con for the want of said Hungerford blood.
“Dell, too, has $10,000 of her own, or rather will have, when her grandmother dies; and there are not many young men who can jump into that fortune every day. Yes, $10,000 is a decided temptation.”
And lest Rose, who already numbered six, should come out in the majority, three long marks were put down against the $10,000 to be inherited at the death of a grandmother, whose name Dell bore.
“Then Dell has an air, which shows at once what she is, and no man need be ashamed of her in any place.” (Mark No. 5.) “Then, again, she’s handsome—decidedly so—such beautiful eyes! such small feet! and curls!”