‘No! But don’t you see what a moral shipwreck enables you to point to your sex, Laura?’ said I. ‘Girls will half-ruin their fathers, and wives almost beggar their husbands, for dress. They clothe themselves for men. No doubt you consider yourself wholly dependent for two-thirds of your charms upon dress. All women think thus—the young and the old, the beautiful and the—others. But what is the truth? You become divine in proportion as you grow ragged!’
‘When I am your wife you will not wish that I shall be divine only on the merits of rags,’ said she.
‘Well, my dear,’ said I, ‘old ocean has given me one hint concerning you. Should time ever despoil you of a single charm there is the remedy of shipwreck. We will endeavour to get cast away again.’
Thus idly would we talk away the days. No ship ever before held such a pair of spoonies, I dare swear, spite of the traditions of the East India Company. But sweet as our shipboard intercourse was, our arrival in England threatened delays and difficulties. First of all she declared that she could not dream of marrying without her father’s consent. This was, no doubt, as it should be, and surely I could not love her the less for being a good daughter. But the consent of a man who lived in Melbourne, and who had to be addressed from England, signified, in those ambling times, the delay of hard upon a year.
‘A year, Laura!’ I cried on one occasion whilst debating this subject; ‘think of it! With the chance, perhaps, of your father’s reply miscarrying.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, it is a long time. Oh, if Melbourne were only in Europe. Yet it cannot be helped, Charles.’
‘But, my heart’s delight,’ I exclaimed, ‘Why should not we get married first and then write for your father’s consent?’
No; she must have her papa’s sanction.
‘All right, birdie,’ said I; ‘anyhow you will remain in England till you hear from him, and so we shall be together.’
‘It might shorten the time,’ she said with a little blush and a timid glance at me under the droop of her eyelids, ‘if you and I sailed to Melbourne.’