“No—nor five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Well, Mr. Warren, only don’t expose me; only pledge me your word of honor that my secret shall be inviolate and May is yours!”
Harry calmed down wonderfully quick, considering he had been in such a passion, and very obligingly made all the pledges his father-in-law that was to be required.
“But there is one thing, Mr. Warren, which I must leave to your generosity,” said Mr. Lillie. “May is my only, and a motherless child—if this arrangement should be repugnant to her feelings, I trust you will not press your claim—we may perhaps find some other way to adjust this little difficulty. I will call May down, we may as well know at once what her feelings are.”
Harry coughed, and walked to the window to conceal a smile, feeling at the same time more respect for Mr. Lillie for this last clause in favor of his child, than he thought him capable of inspiring.
One glance at the happy countenance of her lover informed May the day was theirs.
And so she immediately took a great many airs upon herself—pouted her pretty lips, and protested she thought it really absurd the idea of marrying a man who had made himself so ridiculous—she doted on poets, that she was willing to allow—but not such a conceited fellow as wrote that poem—she knew!
Harry meanwhile whistled “Rory O’More,” and walked the room with an air as much as to say—“It is perfectly indifferent to me, Miss, which ever way you decide.”
“But, foolish child!” whispered her father, “the poem is mine!”
“Yours, dear papa—oh that alters the case—then you wrote that stup—”