“My boy,” said he, having listened to me with great attention, “she has a high opinion of you, and I believe, upon a matter of this kind, would rather be influenced by you than by me. Never lose an opportunity, like a dear fellow, to impress upon her that Mr. Curling is not the shocking bad match she chooses to think him. He has been with me four years, and during that time has behaved himself like a gentleman. It is all very fine for my wife to abuse him now; but up to the moment when she suspected that he was paying Conny attention, she professed to like him very much. I might hunt a long time before I should find a man better suited for my work than Curling. And strange as it will strike you to hear, I can assure you that when my wife has been trying to frighten me about him and Conny, I have thought that he might make my child as good a husband as a richer man, and as my partner be of the greatest use to me.”
I nodded my head, comprehending his drift, and admiring his resolution to view the affair in the brightest light. This, indeed, was a quality that belonged in an especial degree to my father’s family—my father himself owning it largely. I don’t think anything could have made him feel degraded. Had a daughter of his married a sweep, he would have set to work to trace the sweep’s lineage, and not stopped until he had come to an aristocratic tributary. His philosophy was to deal with the events of life, as they befell him, splendidly; to make misfortune imperial with the crown of self-complacency; to distil a kind of essence of dignity out of humiliation, and diffuse the perfume where another man would have hidden the sordid rubbish in the dust-bin of his bosom, and pretended that there was nothing of the kind on the premises.
My uncle, who did not possess my father’s high self-opinion, allowed worthier motives to direct him to the same conduct. I don’t mean to say that the hints he had just dropped of his views regarding Curling were not owing largely to a wish to make the best of a bad bargain; but the wish to see the young people comfortable and happy, very powerfully operated.
“I won’t ask anybody’s advice,” said he, “upon my treatment of Mr. Curling; but think awhile, watch patiently, and act for myself. There is nothing like acting for yourself.”
“Nothing.”
“Curling shows a proper spirit in determining not to sleep in this house longer than a night. He and Conny consented to return with me on that understanding. To-morrow morning he will take lodgings in Updown, and there they will live, until I furnish them a house.”
“When are they to be re-married?”
“I’ll see about that to-morrow. The ceremony must be perfectly private. I don’t believe in registrars acting as clergymen. I would as soon they should administer the sacrament to me as marry me.”
Here came a feeble knock on the door.
“Come in,” said my uncle, and Conny entered.