, he knows you all.'

'I'll bet you a thousand they say No.'

'I've not got a thousand to pay if I should lose, but I'll lay a pony--two,
if you like--that you are an accepted man this day--ay, before dinner.'

'If I only thought so!'

'Confound it--you don't pretend you are in love!'

'I don't know whether I am or not, but I do know how I should like to bring
that nice girl back to Hampshire, and install her at the Dingle. I've a
tidy stable, some nice shooting, a good trout-stream, and then I should
have the prettiest wife in the county.'

'Happy dog! Yours is the real philosophy of life. The fellows who are
realistic enough to reckon up the material elements of their happiness--who
have little to speculate on and less to unbelieve--they are right.'

'If you mean that I'll never break my heart because I don't get in for the
county, that's true--I don't deny it. But come, tell me, is it all settled
about your business? Has the uncle been asked?--has he spoken?'

'He has been asked and given his consent. My distinguished father-in-law,
the prince, has been telegraphed to this morning, and his reply may be here
to-night or to-morrow. At all events, we are determined that even should he
prove adverse, we shall not be deterred from our wishes by the caprice of a
parent who has abandoned us.'

'It's what people would call a love-match.'

'I sincerely trust it is. If her affections were not inextricably engaged,
it is not possible that such a girl could pledge her future to a man as
humble as myself?'

'That is, she is very much in love with _you_?'

'I hope the astonishment of your question does not arise from its seeming
difficulty of belief?'

'No, not so much that, but I thought there might have been a little
heroics, or whatever it is, on your side.'

'Most dull dragoon, do you not know that, so long as a man spoons, he can
talk of his affection for a woman; but that, once she is about to be his
wife, or is actually his wife, he limits his avowals to _her_ love for
_him_?'

'I never heard that before. I say, what a swell you are this morning. The
cock-pheasants will mistake you for one of them.'

'Nothing can be simpler, nothing quieter, I trust, than a suit of dark
purple knickerbockers; and you may see that my thread stockings and my
coarse shoes presuppose a stroll in the plantations, where, indeed, I mean
to smoke my morning cigar.'

'She'll make you give up tobacco, I suppose?'

'Nothing of th