I was overpowered by so much generosity; and, utterly wanting words, had to content myself with silently shaking their hands. It was a real relief to me when they began to talk of Curling.
“I had always proposed,” said uncle Tom, “to make the man my daughter married a partner in the bank; but of course I never anticipated that she would marry a man like Curling. However, waiving the consideration of his poverty, a fitter man than Curling to take in with us I don’t think I could choose.”
“I don’t think you could,” said uncle Dick.
“He is extraordinarily active,” continued uncle Tom, “and were he to be given an interest in the bank, would by his efforts and business habits extend its influence to a degree that would abundantly compensate for his want of capital.”
“Take him in by all means,” said uncle Dick.
“I won’t be in too great a hurry. There is plenty of time. He has behaved ill, though I am willing to forgive him for my girl’s sake; but there would be a want of moral propriety in my heaping benefits upon him too suddenly.”
“Perhaps so,” said uncle Dick. “But Charlie grows uneasy and pines for his sweetheart.”
“Quite true,” I answered, and without ceremony left the room.
Theresa received a letter next morning from my father, and a very gorgeous epistle it was—a series of dignified and embroidered congratulations and loftily-expressed good wishes. She was to let him know the date of her marriage and he would join us two or three days before at the house we should be married from. This letter was read aloud and caused an argument. Which house should we be married from? It was soon shown that Thistlewood was out of the question. It was impossible for uncle Tom to absent himself from Updown, owing to his presence being necessary at the bank, and the same objection held good with respect to Curling, whose presence and Conny’s at the breakfast was regarded by us all as essential to the celebration.
“For,” said my uncle Dick, “the breakfast must be given as much in their honour as in that of Charlie’s and Theresa’s; their healths have never yet been properly drunk, and until that solemnity has been gone through, they cannot, in spite of the double ceremony they have endured, be considered correctly married yet.”