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 rest; living, for the present, in the fairy land of my imagination where such a thing as filthy lucre was undreamt of.

Mrs Clyde’s inquiry, therefore, took me all aback. “What means had I for supporting a wife?” Really, it was a very uncalled-for remark!

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