Lorton; but permit _me_ to judge best
in that matter! Pray, how old are you, Mr Lorton, if I may be allowed
to ask the question?"--she said, looking at me with great "society"
interest, as if she were examining a specimen of the extinct dodo.

"Three-and-twenty," I said sententiously, like a catechumen responding
to the questions supposed to be addressed to "N or M."

"Dear me!" she ejaculated in seeming surprise. "Three--and--twenty? I
really would not have thought it! I wouldn't have taken you to be more
than eighteen at the outside!"

She hit me on my tenderest point. I looked young for my age; and, like
most young fellows, before time teaches them wisdom, making them strive
to disguise the effect of each additional lustrum, I felt sore always
when supposed to be more youthful than I actually was. I was,
consequently, nettled at her remarks. She saw this, and smiled in
amusement.

"I _am_ twenty-three, however, Mrs Clyde, I assure you," I said warmly;
"old enough to get married, I suppose!"

"That entirely depends on circumstances," she said coldly, as if the
matter was of no interest to her whatever; "years are no criterion for
judgment"--and she then stopped, throwing the burden of the next move on
my shoulders.

I did not hesitate any longer, however.

"Will you allow Min to become engaged to me?" I said, valiantly,
plunging at once into the thick of the combat.

"Pray, Mr Lorton," she replied, ignoring my query, "what means have you
for supporting a wife? People cannot live upon nothing, you know; and
`love in a cottage' is an exploded fallacy."

She spoke as lightly and pleasantly as if she were conversing upon some
ordinary society topic with another lady of the world like herself. She
very well knew what she was about, however. She was "developing her
main attack"--as military strategists would say!

You see, I had never given the subject of ways and means an instant's
consideration, having remitted the matter to Providence with that
implicit trust and cheerful hopefulness to which most enraptured swains
are prone. I had only thought of loving Min and being loved by her:--
engagement naturally following between us; and, that, was all I had
thought of as yet.

When the time came for us to be married, our guardian angels would, no
doubt, take care to provide us with the wherewithal!

"Sufficient for the day" was "the evil thereof." Till then, I was quite
satisfied to let the matter re