I shall never go higher, because I don't want
to, nor should I if I lived to be a hundred. As to you saying
that she's after me, I don't like such a remark about her, for it
implies a scheming woman, and a man worth scheming for, both of
which are not only untrue, but ludicrously untrue, of this case.
Isn't it so, father?'
'I'm afraid I don't understand the matter well enough to gie my
opinion,' said his father, in the tone of the fox who had a cold
and could not smell.
'She couldn't have been very backward anyhow, considering the
short time you have known her,' said his mother. 'Well I think
that five years hence you'll be plenty young enough to think of
such things. And really she can very well afford to wait, and
will too, take my word. Living down in an out-step place like
this, I am sure she ought to be very thankful that you took notice
of her. She'd most likely have died an old maid if you hadn't
turned up.'
'All nonsense,' said Stephen, but not aloud.
'A nice little thing she is,' Mrs. Smith went on in a more
complacent tone now that Stephen had been talked down; 'there's
not a word to say against her, I'll own. I see her sometimes
decked out like a horse going to fair, and I admire her for't. A
perfect little lady. But people can't help their thoughts, and if
she'd learnt to make figures instead of letters when she was at
school 'twould have been better for her pocket; for as I said,
there never were worse times for such as she than now.
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