other.  Such a family—­so little mysterious—­so open in their arrangements, was that of the Burtons at Stratton.  The reserve in the reserved families is usually atoned for by the magnificence of the bridal arrangements, when the marriage is at last solemnized; whereas, among the other set—­the people who have no reserve—­the marriage, when it comes, is customarily an affair of much less outward ceremony.  They are married without blast of trumpet, with very little profit to the confectioner, and do their honeymoon, if they do it at all, with prosaic simplicity.

Florence had made up her mind that she would be in no hurry about it.  Harry was in a hurry; but that was a matter of course.  He was a quick-blooded, impatient, restless being.  She was slower, and more given to consideration.  It would be better that they should wait, even if it were for five or six years.  She had no fear of poverty for herself.  She had lived always in a house in which money was much regarded, and among people who were of inexpensive habits.  But such had not been his lot, and it was her duty to think of the mode of life which might suit him.  He would not be happy as a poor man—­without comforts around him, which would simply be comforts to him though they would be luxuries to her.  When her mother told her, shaking her head rather sorrowfully as she heard Florence talk, that she did not like long engagements, Florence would shake hers too, in playful derision, and tell her mother not to be so suspicious.  “It is not you that are going to marry him, mamma.”

“No, my dear; I know that.  But long engagements never are good.  And I can’t think why young people should want so many things, now, that they used to do without very well when I was married.  When I went into housekeeping, we only had one girl of fifteen to do everything; and we hadn’t a nursemaid regular till Theodore was born; and there were three before him.”

Florence could not say how many maid-servants Harry might wish to have under similar circumstances, but she was very confident that he would want much more attendance than her father and mother had done, or even than some of her brothers and sisters.  Her father, when he first married, would not have objected, on returning home, to find his wife in the kitchen, looking after the progress of the dinner; nor even would her brother Theodore have been made unhappy by such a circumstance.  But Harry, she knew, would not like it; and therefore Harry must wait.  “It will do him good, mamma,” said Florence.  “You can’t think that I mean to find fault with him; but I know that he is young in his ways.  He is one of those men who should not marry till they are twenty-eight, or thereabouts.”

“You mean that he is unsteady?”

“No; not unsteady.  I don’t think him a bit unsteady; but he will be happier single for a year or two.  He hasn’t settled down to like his tea and toast when he is tired of his work, as a married man should do.  Do you know that I am not sure that a little flirtation would not be very good for him?”