n wife
would be better than that. Let it be said,--only he himself most
certainly could not be the person to say it,--let it be said to some
man of rank and means and fairly good character: "Here is a wife for
you with so many thousand pounds, with beauty, as you can see for
yourself, with rank and belongings of the highest; very good in every
respect;--only that as regards her heart she thinks she has given
it to a young man named Tregear. No marriage there is possible; but
perhaps the young lady might suit you?" It was thus he had been
married. There was an absence in it of that romance which, though he
had never experienced it in his own life, was always present to his
imagination. His wife had often ridiculed him because he could only
live among figures and official details; but to her had not been
given the power of looking into a man's heart and feeling all that
was there. Yes;--in such bargaining for a wife, in such bargaining
for a husband, there could be nothing of the tremulous delicacy of
feminine romance; but it would be better than standing at a stall
in the market till the sufficient purchaser should come. It never
occurred to him that the delicacy, the innocence, the romance, the
bloom might all be preserved if he would give his girl to the man
whom she said she loved. Could he have modelled her future course
according to his own wishes, he would have had her live a gentle life
for the next three years, with a pencil perhaps in her hand or a
music-book before her;--and then come forth, cleaned as it were by
such quarantine from the impurity to which she had been subjected.

When he was back at Matching he at once told his daughter what he had
arranged for her, and then there took place a prolonged discussion
both as to his view of her future life and as to her own. "You did
tell her then about Mr. Tregear?" she asked.

"As she is to have charge of you for a time I thought it best."

"Perhaps it is. Perhaps--you were afraid."

"No; I was not afraid," he said angrily.

"You need not be afraid. I shall do nothing elsewhere that I would
not do here, and nothing anywhere without telling you."

"I know I can trust you."

"But, papa, I shall always intend to marry Mr. Tregear."

"No!" he exclaimed.

"Yes;--always. I want you to understand exactly how it is. Nothing
you can do can separate me from him."

"Mary, that is very wicked."

"It cannot be wicked to tell the truth, papa. I mean to try to do