Chapter Five.
True Love Runs anything but smooth—Being a Melancholy Subject, I Cut it short.
The day after my return I met Harry Loring. Alas, how changed was the once joyous expression of his countenance!
“My dear fellow, what is the matter?” I asked.
“What, don’t you know?” he exclaimed. “I thought all the world did, and laughed at me. False, fickle, heartless flirting!”
“What is all this about?” I asked. “I deeply regret, I feel—”
“Oh, of course you do,” he replied, interrupting me petulantly. “I’ll tell you how it was. She had accepted me, as you may have guessed, and I made sure that there would be no difficulties, as she has plenty of money, though I have little enough; but when there is sufficient on one side, what more can be required? At last one day she said, ‘I wish, Mr Loring, you would speak to mamma’ (she had always called me Harry before). ‘Of course I will,’ said I, thinking it was a hint to fix the day; but after I left her, my mind misgave me. Well, my dear fellow, as I dare say you know, that same having to speak to papa or mamma is the most confoundedly disagreeable thing of all the disagreeables in life, when one hasn’t got a good rent-roll to show. At least, after all the billing and cooing, and the romance and sentiment of love, it is such a worldly, matter-of-fact, pounds-shillings-and-pence affair, that it is enough to disgust a fellow. However, I nerved myself up for the encounter, and was ushered into the presence of the old dragon.”
“You shouldn’t speak of your intended mother-in-law in that way,” I observed, interrupting him.