Nevertheless he stopped.

"Have you changed your mind?"

"I shouldn't change my mind, if I lived to be as old as Methuselah!"

"That's right. Well, then,—the thing is going on?"

"It isn't going on! and I suppose it never will!"

"Had the lady any objection? I cannot believe that."

"I don't know," said Tom, with a big sigh. "I almost think she hadn't; but I never could find that out."

"What hindered you, old fellow?"

"My blessed relations. Julia and mother made such a row. I wouldn't have minded the row neither; for a man must marry to please himself and not his mother; and I believe no man ever yet married to please his sister; but, Philip, they didn't give me a minute. I could never join her anywhere, but Julia would be round the next corner; or else George would be there before me. George must put his oar in; and between them they kept it up."

"And you think she liked you?"