ve seen that I ask your permission to pay
my formal attentions to Miss L'Estrange. It was with intention I first
discussed and dismissed a matter of business; I then proceeded to a
question of sentiment, premising that I held myself bound to satisfy
you regarding my property, and my pulmonary condition. Mind, body, and
estate, sir, are not coupled together ignorantly, nor inharmoniously;
as _you_ know far better than me--mind, body, and estate," repeated he
slowly. "I am here to satisfy you on each of them."

"Don't you think, Sir Marcus, that there are questions which should
possibly precede these?"

"Do you mean Miss L'Estrange's sentiments, sir?" George bowed, and Sir
Marcus continued: "I am vain enough to suppose I can make out a good
case for myself. I look more, but I'm only forty-eight, forty-eight
on the twelfth September. I have twenty-seven thousand pounds in bank
stock--stock, mind you--and three thousand four hundred a year in land,
Norfolk property. I have a share--we 'll not speak of it now--in a city
house; and what 's better than all, sir, not sixpence of debt in the
world. I am aware your sister can have no fortune, but I can afford
myself, what the French call a caprice, though this ain't a caprice,
for I have thought well over the matter, and I see she would suit
me perfectly. She has nice gentle ways, she can be soothing without
depression, and calm without discouragement. Ah, that is the secret of
secrets! She gave me my drops last evening with a tenderness, a graceful
sympathy, that went to my heart. I want that, sir--I need it, I yearn
for it. Simpson said to me years ago, 'Marry, Sir Marcus, marry! yours
is a temperament that requires study and intelligent care. A really
clever woman gets to know a pulse to perfection; they have a finer
sensibility, a higher organization, too, in the touch.' Simpson laid
great stress on that; but I have looked out in vain, sir. I employed
agents: I sent people abroad; I advertised in the 'Times'--M. C. was in
the second column--for above two years; and with a correspondence that
took two clerks to read through and minute. All to no end! All in vain!
They tell me that the really competent people never do reply to an
advertisement; that one must look out for them oneself, make private
personal inquiry. Well, sir, I did that, and I got into some unpleasant
scrapes with it, and two actions for breach of promise; two thousand,
pounds the last cost me, though I got my