"Don't I say so? But I'm not sure of doing it, for houses is going down in Stamford-street: people that pay well for apartments, like to be fashionable, and get up to the new buildings westward. Any way, I'm afraid there won't be no more realized than will serve to pay what mother owed."
David stopped here and looked down on his accounts again. Betsey, who sat at the opposite side of the table, with the strong light of the summer evening lighting up its old red cloth, returned to hers. Before she had accomplished another item, David resumed—
"And all this will take time; three or four months, perhaps. And so, Betsey—if you don't mind being hurried into it—I think we had better be married."
"Be married!" echoed Betsey, dropping her book and her pencil. "Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean what I say," was David's sententious answer; "I don't mean nothing else. You and me must be married."
Betsey stared at him aghast. "Oh, David! how can you think of such a thing yet? It is not a month since your poor mother died."
"That's just it, her being dead," said David. "Don't you see, Betsey, neither you nor me can go out of the house until somebody takes to it, or till something's settled; and, in short, folks might get saying things."
Not for a full minute did she in the least comprehend his meaning. Then she burst into a passion of tears of anger; all her face aflame.
"Oh! David, how can you speak so? who would dare to be so cruel?"
"It's because I know the world better than you, and because I know how cruel it is, that I say it," added David. "Look here, Betsey, there's nobody left now to take care of you but me; and I shall take care of you, and I'm saying what's right. I shall buy a licence; it's a dreadful deal of money, when asking in church does as well, but that takes longer, and I'll spend the money cheerfully, for your sake. We'll go quietly to church next Sunday morning, and nobody need know, till it's all over, what we've been for. Unless you like to tell the servant, and the parson and his wife in the drawing-room. Perhaps you'd better."