hould understand each other about
this--"

"Fill your glass, Frank;" Frank mechanically did as he was told, and
passed the bottle.

"I should never forgive myself were I to deceive you, or keep
anything from you."

"I believe it is not in your nature to deceive me, Frank."

"The fact is, sir, that I have made up my mind that Mary Thorne shall
be my wife--sooner or later that is, unless, of course, she should
utterly refuse. Hitherto, she has utterly refused me. I believe I may
now say that she has accepted me."

The squire sipped his claret, but at the moment said nothing. There
was a quiet, manly, but yet modest determination about his son
that he had hardly noticed before. Frank had become legally of
age, legally a man, when he was twenty-one. Nature, it seems, had
postponed the ceremony till he was twenty-two. Nature often does
postpone the ceremony even to a much later age;--sometimes,
altogether forgets to accomplish it.

The squire continued to sip his claret; he had to think over the
matter a while before he could answer a statement so deliberately
made by his son.

"I think I may say so," continued Frank, with perhaps unnecessary
modesty. "She is so honest that, had she not intended it, she
would have said so honestly. Am I right, father, in thinking that,
as regards Mary, personally, you would not reject her as a
daughter-in-law?"

"Personally!" said the squire, glad to have the subject presented to
him in a view that enabled him to speak out. "Oh, no; personally, I
should not object to her, for I love her dearly. She is a good girl.
I do believe she is a good girl in every respect. I have always liked
her; liked to see her about the house. But--"

"I know what you would say, father." This was rather more than the
squire knew himself. "Such a marriage is imprudent."

"It is more than that, Frank; I fear it is impossible."

"Impossible! No, father; it is not impossible."

"It is impossible, Frank, in the usual sense. What are you to live
upon? What would you do with your children? You would not wish to see
your wife distressed and comfortless."

"No, I should not like to see that."

"You would not wish to begin life as an embarrassed man and end it
as a ruined man. If you were now to marry Miss Thorne such would, I
fear, doubtless be your lot."

Frank caught at the word "now." "I don't expect to marry immediately.
I know that would be imprudent. But I am pledged, father, and I
certainly can