on that same thursday, the thursday on which mary lowther wrote her two despatches to bullhampton, miss marrable sent a note down to parson john, requesting that she might have an interview with him. if he were at home and disengaged, she would go down to him that evening, or he might, if he pleased, come to her. the former she thought would be preferable. parson john assented, and very soon after dinner the private brougham came round from the dragon, and conveyed miss marrable down to the rectory at lowtown.

“i am going down to parson john,” said she to mary. “i think it best to speak to him about the engagement.”

mary received the information with a nod of her head that was intended to be gracious, and aunt sarah proceeded on her way. she found her cousin alone in his study, and immediately opened the subject which had brought her down the hill. “walter, i believe, has told you about this engagement, mr. marrable.”

“never was so astonished in my life! he told me last night. i had begun to think that he was getting very fond of her, but i didn’t suppose it would come to this.”

“don’t you think it very imprudent?”

“of course it’s imprudent, sarah. it don’t require any thinking to be aware of that. it’s downright stupid;—two cousins with nothing a year between them, when no doubt each of them might do very well. they’re well-born, and well-looking, and clever, and all that. it’s absurd, and i don’t suppose it will ever come to anything.”

“did you tell walter what you thought?”

“why should i tell him? he knows what i think without my telling him; and he wouldn’t care a pinch of snuff for my opinion. i tell you because you ask me.”

“but ought not something to be done to prevent it?”

“what can we do? i might tell him that i wouldn’t have him here any more, but i shouldn’t like to do that. perhaps she’ll do your bidding.”

“i fear not, mr. marrable.”

“then you may be quite sure he won’t do mine. he’ll go away and forget her. that’ll be the end of it. it’ll be as good as a year gone out of her life, and she’ll lose this other lover of hers at—what’s the name of the place? it’s a pity, but that’s what she’ll have to go through.”

“is he so light as that?” asked aunt sarah, shocked.

“he’s about the same as other men, i take it; and she’ll be the same as other girls. they like to have their bit of fun now, and there’d be no great harm,—only such fun costs the lady so plaguy dear. as for their being married, i don’t think walter will ever be such a fool as that.”

there was something in this that was quite terrible to aunt sarah. her mary lowther was to be treated in this way;—to be played with as a plaything, and then to be turned off when the time for playing came to an end! and this little game was to be played for walter marrable’s delectation, though the result of it would be the ruin of mary’s prospects in life!

“i think,” said she, “that if i believed him to be so base as that, i would send him out of the house.”

“he does not mean to be base at all. he’s just like the rest of ’em,” said parson john.

aunt sarah used every argument in her power to show that something should be done; but all to no purpose. she thought that if sir gregory were brought to interfere, that perhaps might have an effect; but the old clergyman laughed at this. what did captain walter marrable, who had been in the army all his life, and who had no special favour to expect from his uncle, care about sir gregory? head of the family, indeed! what was the head of the family to him? if a girl would be a fool, the girl must take the result of her folly. that was parson john’s doctrine,—that and a confirmed assurance that this engagement, such as it was, would lead to nothing. he was really very sorry for mary, in whose praise he said ever so many good-natured things; but she had not been the first fool, and she would not be the last. it was not his business, and he could do no good by interfering. at last, however, he did promise that he would himself speak to walter. nothing would come of it, but, as his cousin asked him, he would speak to his nephew.

he waited for four-and-twenty hours before he spoke, and during that time was subject to none of those terrors which were now making miss marrable’s life a burden to her. in his opinion it was almost a pity that a young fellow like walter should be interrupted in his amusement. according to his view of life, very much wisdom was not expected from ladies, young or old. they, for the most part, had their bread found for them; and were not required to do anything, whether they were rich or poor. let them be ever so poor, the disgrace of poverty did not fall upon them as it did upon men. but then, if they would run their heads into trouble, trouble came harder upon them than on men; and for that they had nobody to blame but themselves. of course it was a very nice thing to be in love. verses and pretty speeches and easy-spoken romance were pleasant enough in their way. parson john had no doubt tried them himself in early life, and had found how far they were efficacious for his own happiness. but young women were so apt to want too much of the excitement! a young man at bullhampton was not enough without another young man at loring. that, we fear, was the mode in which parson john looked at the subject,—which mode of looking at it, had he ever ventured to explain it to mary lowther, would have brought down upon his head from that young woman an amount of indignant scorn which would have been very disagreeable to parson john. but then he was a great deal too wise to open his mind on such a subject to mary lowther.

“i think, sir, i’d better go up and see curling again next week,” said the captain.

“i dare say. is anything not going right?”

“i suppose i shall get the money, but i shall like to know when. i am very anxious, of course, to fix a day for my marriage.”

“i should not be over quick about that, if i were you,” said parson john.

“why not? situated as i am, i must be quick. i must make up my mind at any rate where we’re to live.”

“you’ll go back to your regiment, i suppose, next month?”

“yes, sir. i shall go back to my regiment next month, unless we may make up our minds to go out to india.”

“what, you and mary?”

“yes, i and mary.”

“as man and wife?” said parson john, with a smile.

“how else should we go?”

“well, no. if she goes with you, she must go as mrs. captain marrable, of course. but if i were you, i would not think of anything so horrible.”

“it would be horrible,” said walter marrable.

“i should think it would. india may be very well when a man is quite young, and if he can keep himself from beer and wine; but to go back there at your time of life with a wife, and to look forward to a dozen children there, must be an unpleasant prospect, i should say.”

walter marrable sat silent and black.

“i should give up all idea of india,” continued his uncle.

“what the deuce is a man to do?” asked the captain.

the parson shrugged his shoulders.

“i’ll tell you what i’ve been thinking of,” said the captain. “if i could get a farm of four or five hundred acres—”

“a farm!” exclaimed the parson.

“why not a farm? i know that a man can do nothing with a farm unless he has capital. he should have ￡10 or ￡12 an acre for his land, i suppose. i should have that and some trifle of an income besides if i sold out. i suppose my uncle would let me have a farm under him?”

“he’d see you—further first.”

“why shouldn’t i do as well with a farm as another?”

“why not turn shoemaker? because you have not learned the business. farmer, indeed! you’d never get the farm, and if you did, you would not keep it for three years. you’ve been in the army too long to be fit for anything else, walter.”

captain marrable looked black and angry at being so counselled; but he believed what was said to him, and had no answer to make to it.

“you must stick to the army,” continued the old man; “and if you’ll take my advice, you’ll do so without the impediment of a wife.”

“that’s quite out of the question.”

“why is it out of the question?”

“how can you ask me, uncle john? would you have me go back from an engagement after i have made it?”

“i would have you go back from anything that was silly.”

“and tell a girl, after i have asked her to be my wife, that i don’t want to have anything more to do with her?”

“i should not tell her that; but i should make her understand, both for her own sake and for mine, that we had been too fast, and that the sooner we gave up our folly the better for both of us. you can’t marry her, that’s the truth of it.”

“you’ll see if i can’t.”

“if you choose to wait ten years, you may.”

“i won’t wait ten months, nor, if i can have my own way, ten weeks.” what a pity that mary could not have heard him. “half the fellows in the army are married without anything beyond their pay; and i’m to be told that we can’t get along with ￡300 a year? at any rate, we’ll try.”

“marry in haste, and repent at leisure,” said uncle john.

“according to the doctrines that are going now-a-days,” said the captain, “it will be held soon that a gentleman can’t marry unless he has got ￡3000 a year. it is the most heartless, damnable teaching that ever came up. it spoils the men, and makes women, when they do marry, expect ever so many things that they ought never to want.”

“and you mean to teach them better, walter?”

“i mean to act for myself, and not be frightened out of doing what i think right, because the world says this and that.”

as he so spoke, the angry captain got up to leave the room.

“all the same,” rejoined the parson, firing the last shot; “i’d think twice about it, if i were you, before i married mary lowther.”

“he’s more of an ass, and twice as headstrong as i thought him,” said parson john to miss marrable the next day; “but still i don’t think it will come to anything. as far as i can observe, three of these engagements are broken off for one that goes on. and when he comes to look at things he’ll get tired of it. he’s going up to london next week, and i shan’t press him to come back. if he does come i can’t help it. if i were you, i wouldn’t ask him up the hill, and i should tell miss mary a bit of my mind pretty plainly.”

hitherto, as far as words went, aunt sarah had told very little of her mind to mary lowther on the subject of her engagement, but she had spoken as yet no word of congratulation; and mary knew that the manner in which she proposed to bestow herself was not received with favour by any of her relatives at loring.