roduction, expressed to him that he had long felt that he had loved
his daughter, but had waited until she was seventeen before expressing
his wishes. He said that he had delayed his departure for England on
this account alone, and now asked permission to pay his addresses to
her, adding that he hoped that he was not altogether indifferent to her.

Mr. Hardy heard him quietly to the end.

'I can hardly say that I am unprepared for what you say, Mr. Cooper,
although I had never thought of such a thing until two days since. Then
your long delay here, and your frequent visits to our house, opened the
eyes of Mrs. Hardy and myself. To yourself, personally, I can entertain
no objection. Still, when I remember that you are only six-and-twenty,
and that for the last four years you have seen no one with whom you
could possibly fall in love, with the exception of my daughter, I can
hardly think that you have had sufficient opportunity to know your own
mind. When you return to England, you will meet young ladies very much
prettier and very much more accomplished than my Maud, and you may
regret the haste which led you to form an engagement out here. You shake
your head, as is natural that you should do; but I repeat, you cannot at
present know your own mind. If this is true of you, it is still more
true of my daughter. She is very young, and knows nothing whatever of
the world. Next month she proceeds to England with her mother, and for
the next two years she will be engaged upon finishing her education. At
the end of that time I shall myself return to England, and we shall then
enter into society. If at that time you are still of the same way of
thinking, and choose to renew our acquaintance, I shall be very happy,
in the event of Maud accepting you, to give my consent. But I must
insist that there shall be no engagement, no love-making, no
understanding of any sort or kind, before you start. I put it to your
honour as a gentleman, that you will make no effort to meet her alone,
and that you will say nothing whatever to her, to lead her to believe
that you are in love with her. Only, when you say good-bye to her, you
may say that I have told you that as the next two years are to be passed
in study, to make up for past deficiencies, I do not wish her to enter
at all into society, but that at the end of that time you hope to renew
the acquaintance.'

Mr. Cooper endeavoured in vain to alter Mr. Hardy's determination, and
was at l