"I am sure, Mr Cleave, I can get on quite well without your advice!" snapped Dora.
"My advice," said Mr Cleave, who only caught the last word of her sentence, "is to accept him. Yes, a good match. A most temperate young man."
"It's got nothing to do with temperance," roared Miss Bird.
Mr Cleave heard this remark--the people in the next house probably did as well--and looked at Miss Bird reproachfully.
"I hope you are not falling away from the Cause?" he said.
"It's got nothing to do with the Cause!" bellowed Miss Bird. "What I say is, a bad husband is better than no husband at all. Even a pretty girl doesn't get too many offers nowadays. Mr Jefferson will make a very good husband, and if Dora doesn't accept him she'll be a fool!"
"You hear what Miss Bird says!" observed Mrs Maybury, looking at Dora.
"Thank you," said Dora, in an icy voice, "I think I can manage my affairs without assistance from Miss Bird!"
With which declaration she flung off to bed.
Eventually, however, she accepted Mr Jefferson. The argument that weighed with her most was that by becoming engaged to Mr Jefferson she could not help but benefit her father. One of the first things Mr Jefferson would do (asseverated Mrs Maybury), after becoming engaged to Dora, would be to find some way of bettering Mr Maybury's position at the office.