'And marry a man fifty years older than yourself with one foot already well in——'
'She says she has always been perfectly happy.—Well, George, you know all that. Next Wednesday, which is my birthday, I am to have a grand talk with my guardian. My mother hopes that he will bring me to my senses. Hilda says that she trusts entirely to Mr. Dering's good sense. I shall arm myself with all my obstinacy. Perhaps, George—who knows?—I may persuade him to advance your salary.'
'No, Elsie. Not even you would persuade Mr. Dering to give a managing clerk more than two hundred pounds a year. But arm yourself with all you have got—don't forget any piece of that armour, child. The breastplate—there was a poor damsel once who forgot that and was caught by an appeal to her heart—nor the helmet—another poor damsel was once caught by an appeal to her reason after forgetting the helmet. The shield, of course, you will not forget—and for weapons, my dear, take your sweet eyes and your lovely face and your winning voice—and I swear that you will subdue even Mr. Dering himself—that hardened old parchment.'
This was the kind of talk which these lovers held together whenever they met. George was poor—the son of a clergyman, whose power of advancing him ceased when he had paid the fees for admission. He was only a clerk, and he saw no chance of being anything else but a clerk. Elsie could bring nothing to the family nest, unless her mother made her an allowance. Of this there could be no hope. The engagement was considered deplorable: marriage, under the circumstances, simple madness. And Hilda had done so well for herself, and could do so much for a sister so pretty, so bright as Elsie! Oh! she was throwing away all her chances. Did one ever hear of anything so lamentable? No regard for the family: no ambition: no sense of what a girl owes to herself: no recognition nor gratitude for the gift of good looks—as if beauty was given for the mere purpose of pleasing a penniless lover! And to go and throw herself away upon a twopenny lawyer's clerk!
'George,' she said seriously, 'I have thought it all out. If you really mean it—if you really can face poverty—mind—it is harder—much—for a man than a woman——'
'I can face everything—with you, Elsie,' replied the lover. Would he have been a lover worth having if he had not made that answer? And, indeed, he meant it, as every lover should.
'Then—George—what in the whole world is there for me unless I can make my dear boy happy? I will marry you as soon as you please, rich or poor, for better for worse—whatever they may say at home.—Will that do for you, George?'
Since man is so constituted that his happiness wholly depends upon the devotion of a woman, I believe that no dear boy ever had a better chance of happiness than George Austin—only a managing clerk—with his Elsie. And so this history begins where many end, with an engagement.