and as I know little about courtship, and have
nobody here that could settle this affair for me--for Walpole is thinking
of his own concerns--I've thought the best way, as it was the shortest, was
to come at once to yourself: I have got a few documents here that will show
you I have enough to live on, and to make a tidy settlement, and do all
that ought to be done.'

'I'm sure you are an excellent fellow, and I like you myself; but you see,
major, a man doesn't dispose of his daughter like his horse, and I'd like
to hear what she would say to the bargain.'

'I suppose you could ask her?'

'Well, indeed, that's true, I could ask her; but on the whole, major, don't
you think the question would come better from yourself?'

'That means courtship?'

'Yes, I admit it is liable to that objection, but somehow it's the usual
course.'

'No, no,' said the other slowly, 'I could not manage that. I'm sick of
bachelor life, and I'm ready to send in my papers and have done with it,
but I don't know how to go about the other. Not to say, Kearney,' added he,
more boldly, 'that I think there is something confoundedly mean in that
daily pursuit of a woman, till by dint of importunity, and one thing or
another, you get her to like you! What can she know of her own mind after
three or four months of what these snobs call attentions? How is she to say
how much is mere habit, how much is gratified vanity of having a fellow
dangling after her, how much the necessity of showing the world she is not
compromised by the cad's solicitations? Take my word for it, Kearney, my
way is the best. Be able to go up like a man and tell the girl, "It's all
arranged. I've shown the old cove that I can take care of you, he has seen
that I've no debts or mortgages; I'm ready to behave handsomely, what do
you say yourself?"'

'She might say, "I know nothing about you. I may possibly not see much to
dislike, but how do I know I should like you."'

'And I'd say, "I'm one of those fellows that are the same all through,
to-day as I was yesterday, and to-morrow the same. When I'm in a bad temper
I go out on the moors and walk it off, and I'm not hard to live with."'

'There's many a bad fellow a woman might like better.'

'All the luckier for me, then, that I don't get her.'

'I might say, too,' said Kearney, with a smile, 'how much do you know of
my daughter--of her temper, her tastes, her habits, and her likings? What
assurance have you that you would