fully. I must say I could not have done what
they have done with so good a grace--so heroic a grace, not to save my
life, Jonathan. But that is not to say that they are to be in haste to
marry--tradesmen. Indeed, when I come to think of it, the fact of their
being so independent and able to provide for themselves, ought to be
like having so many fortunes. It should entitle them to be more
particular, and free to pick and choose the husbands who exactly suit
them. Another thing, if our daughters are not worthy of being wooed and
wooed, and asked--not twice, but half a dozen times, before they are
persuaded to say yes, I don't know who is. The idea of their jumping at
any man!--you have drawn me into vulgar language, Jonathan,--the moment
he makes his bow is too bad or too good, I do not know which to say. You
do not mean that I ever accustomed you to such forward behaviour?"

"No, no, Maria," the gentleman assured her with a smile, "far from it.
There was a bad epidemic raging at the time our little business came
off, don't you remember? I forget now whether it was small-pox or
scarlet fever, but I know I was not only tremendously busy, I dared not
go to your father's house. Then I heard that another swain--an officer
fellow from the barracks at Craigton was hanging about either you or
your poor sister Dolly, nobody could tell which, and I dared not delay
longer. I was driven to the supreme rashness of committing my suit to
paper, and what do you think you wrote back? Have you forgotten? You
thanked me very prettily for the compliment I had paid you, and you
promised to give the substance of my letter your best consideration.
Literally that was all--to a man worn off his feet with work and
hungering for a word of assurance."

"Go away with you, sir," exclaimed his wife, restored to high good
humour, and tapping him on the shoulder. "You understood me
perfectly--you had wit enough for that. You went off directly and
ordered new drawing-room furniture, what we have to this day, on the
strength of that letter--you know you did."

"Showed how far gone, and what a confiding simpleton I was," he said,
and then he tried again to set her right with regard to Tom Robinson.
"You don't understand Robinson, Maria. It is not that he was not in
earnest, or that he is fickle or anything of the kind. It is rather a
case of the better man being beaten, and fools rushing in where angels
fear to tread. Such men as he is accept a sentence