“I shouldn’t refuse it if I were you.”

“Of course, I shan’t refuse it; but what I mean is that I never thought about it when I asked her to have me; and I shouldn’t have been a bit more likely to ask her if she had ten times as much.”

“A fortune with one’s wife isn’t a bad thing for a poor man, Harry.”

“But a poor man must be poor in more senses than one when he looks about to get a fortune in that way.”

“I suppose you won’t marry just yet,” said the father.  “Including everything, you would not have five hundred a year, and that would be very close work in London.”

“It’s not quite decided yet, sir.  As far as I am myself concerned, I think that people are a great deal too prudent about money, I believe I could live as a married man on a hundred a year, if I had no more; and as for London, I don’t see why London should be more expensive than any other place.  You can get exactly what you want in London, and make your halfpence go farther there than anywhere else.”

“And your sovereigns go quicker,” said the rector.

“All that is wanted,” said Harry, “is the will to live on your income, and a little firmness in carrying out your plans.”

The rector of Clavering, as he heard all this wisdom fall from his son’s lips, looked at Harry’s expensive clothes, at the ring on his finger, at the gold chain on his waistcoat, at the studs in his shirt, and smiled gently.  He was by no means so clever a man as his son, but he knew something more of the world, and though not much given to general reading, he had read his son’s character.  “A great deal of firmness and of fortitude also is wanted for that kind of life,” he said.  “There are men who can go through it without suffering, but I would not advise any young man to commence it in a hurry.  If I were you I should wait a year or two.  Come, let’s have a walk; that is, if you can tear yourself away from your lady-love for an hour.  If there is not Saul coming up the avenue!  Take your hat, Harry, and we’ll get out the other way.  He only wants to see the girls about the school, but if he catches us he’ll keep us for an hour.”  Then Harry asked after Mr. Saul’s love-affairs.  “I’ve not heard one single word about it since you went away,” said the rector.  “It seems to have passed off like a dream.  He and Fanny go on the same as ever, and I suppose he knows that he made a fool of himself.”  But in this matter the rector of Clavering was mistaken.  Mr. Saul did not by any means think that he made a fool of himself.

“He has never spoken a word to me since,” said Fanny to her brother that evening; “that is, not a word as to what occurred then.  Of course it was very embarrassing at first, though I don’t think he minded it much.  He came after a day or two just the same as ever, and he almost made me think that he had forgotten it.”

“And he wasn’t confused?”

“Not at all.  He never is.  The only difference is that I think he scolds me more than he used to do.”