"

"Fool if it didn't. And as for looks--I can speak to you as to my own
son--Why, handsome is that handsome does."

"And that handsome has; for you must honestly put that into the
account."

"You think so? So do I! Well, then, Tom,"--and here Mark was seized
with a tendency to St. Vitus's dance, and began overhauling every button
on his coat, twitching up his black gloves, till (as undertakers' gloves
are generally meant to do) they burst in half-a-dozen places; taking off
his hat, wiping his head fiercely, and putting the hat on again behind
before; till at last he snatched his arm from Tom's, and gripping him by
the shoulder, recommenced--

"You think so, eh? Well, I must say it, so I'd better have it out now,
hatband or none! What do you think of the man who married my daughter,
face and all?"

"I should think," quoth Tom, wondering who the happy man could be, "that
he would be so lucky in possessing such a heart, that he would be a fool
to care about the face."

"Then be as good as your word, and take her yourself. I've watched you
this last week, and you'll make her a good husband. There, I have
spoken; let me hear no more about it."

And Mark half pushed Tom from him, and puffed on by his side, highly
excited.

If Mark had knocked the young Doctor down, he would have been far less
astonished and far less puzzled too. "Well," thought he, "I fancied
nothing could throw my steady old engine off the rails; but I am off
them now, with a vengeance." What to say he knew not; at last--

"It is just like your generosity, sir; you have been a brother to my
father; and now--"

"And now I'll be a father to you! Old Mark does nothing by halves."

"But, sir, however lucky I should be in possessing Miss Armsworth's
heart, what reason have I to suppose that I do so? I never spoke a word
to her. I needn't say that she never did to me--which--"

"Of course she didn't, and of course you didn't. Should like to have
seen you making love to my daughter, indeed! No, sir; it's my will and
pleasure. I've settled it, and done it shall be! I shall go home and
tell Mary, and she'll obey me--I should like to see her do anything
else! Hoity, toity, fathers must be masters, sir! even in these fly-away
new times, when young ones choose their own husbands, and their own
politics, and their own hounds, and their own religion too, and be
hanged to them!"

What did this unaccustomed bit of bluster mean? for unaccustomed it was;
an