Fro. That will suit her perfectly.
Har. But I say, Frosine, have you spoken to the mother about the dowry she can give her daughter? Did you make her understand that under such circumstances she ought to do her utmost and to make a great sacrifice? For, after all, one does not marry a girl without her bringing something with her.
Fro. How something! She is a girl who will bring you a clear twelve thousand francs a year?
Har. Twelve thousand francs a year?
Fro. Yes! To begin with, she has been nursed and brought up with the strictest notions of frugality. She is a girl accustomed to live upon salad, milk, cheese, and apples, and who consequently will require neither a well served up table, nor any rich broth, nor your everlasting peeled barley; none, in short, of all those delicacies that another woman would want. This is no small matter, and may well amount to three thousand francs yearly. Besides this, she only cares for simplicity and neatness; she will have none of those splendid dresses and rich jewels, none of that sumptuous furniture in which girls like her indulge so extravagantly; and this item is worth more than four thousand francs per annum. Lastly, she has the deepest aversion to gambling; and this is not very common nowadays among women. Why, I know of one in our neighbourhood who lost at least twenty thousand francs this year. But let us reckon only a fourth of that sum. Five thousand francs a year at play and four thousand in clothes and jewels make nine thousand; and three thousand francs which we count for food, does it not make your twelve thousand francs?
Har. Yes, that's not bad; but, after all, that calculation has nothing real in it.
Fro. Excuse me; is it nothing real to bring you in marriage a great sobriety, to inherit a great love for simplicity in dress, and the acquired property of a great hatred for gambling?
Har. It is a farce to pretend to make up a dowry with all the expenses she will not run into. I could not give a receipt for what I do not receive; and I must decidedly get something.
Fro. Bless me! you will get enough; and they have spoken to me of a certain country where they have some property, of which you will be master.
Har. We shall have to see to that. But, Frosine, there is one more thing that makes me uneasy. The girl is young, you know; and young people generally like those who are young like themselves, and only care for the society of the young. I am afraid that a man of my age may not exactly suit her taste, and that this may occasion in my family certain complications that would in nowise be pleasant to me.