This was clearly a good match. Not that he would unduly press her, but
"if she _could_, for I would never force a young girl's inclinations." He
never thought, he says, that the Snodgrass business was serious. But,
how natural that, when Arabella, their friend, had become a regular
heroine and had gone off with her Winkle, that this should fill Emily's
head with similar thoughts, and set the pair on thinking that they were
persecuted, &c. What a natural scene is this between father and
daughter.

"My daughter Bella, Emily having gone to bed with a headache after she
had read Arabella's letter to me, sat herself down by my side the
other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. "Well,
pa," she says; "what do you think of it?" "Why, my dear," I said; "I
suppose it's all very well; I hope it's for the best." I answered in
this way because I was sitting before the fire at the time, drinking
my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my throwing in an undecided
word now and then would induce her to continue talking. Both my girls
are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow old I like to sit
with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the
happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I
used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. "It's quite a
marriage of affection, pa," said Bella, after a short silence. "Yes,
my dear," said I; "but such marriages do not always turn out the
happiest." "I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against
marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little. "I was
wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either," said I patting
her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could do it, "for
your mother's was one and so was yours." "It's not that, I meant,
pa," said Bella. "The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about
Emily." The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last
mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was unhappy; that she and
your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and
communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully
made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her
old friend and schoolfellow.

Another member of this pleasant household was "The Fat Boy." There is
nothing humorous or farcical in the mere physical exhibition of a fat