who got hold of his mistress's skates and slept with them for a fortnight
and cried when he had to give them up.

CHAPTER XII

Theobald's engagement was all very well as far as it went, but there was
an old gentleman with a bald head and rosy cheeks in a counting-house in
Paternoster Row who must sooner or later be told of what his son had in
view, and Theobald's heart fluttered when he asked himself what view this
old gentleman was likely to take of the situation. The murder, however,
had to come out, and Theobald and his intended, perhaps imprudently,
resolved on making a clean breast of it at once. He wrote what he and
Christina, who helped him to draft the letter, thought to be everything
that was filial, and expressed himself as anxious to be married with the
least possible delay. He could not help saying this, as Christina was at
his shoulder, and he knew it was safe, for his father might be trusted
not to help him. He wound up by asking his father to use any influence
that might be at his command to help him to get a living, inasmuch as it
might be years before a college living fell vacant, and he saw no other
chance of being able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any
money except Theobald's fellowship, which would, of course, lapse on his
taking a wife.

Any step of Theobald's was sure to be objectionable in his father's eyes,
but that at three-and-twenty he should want to marry a penniless girl who
was four years older than himself, afforded a golden opportunity which
the old gentleman--for so I may now call him, as he was at least
sixty--embraced with characteristic eagerness.

"The ineffable folly," he wrote, on receiving his son's letter, "of
your fancied passion for Miss Allaby fills me with the gravest
apprehensions. Making every allowance for a lover's blindness, I
still have no doubt that the lady herself is a well-conducted and
amiable young person, who would not disgrace our family, but were she
ten times more desirable as a daughter-in-law than I can allow myself
to hope, your joint poverty is an insuperable objection to your
marriage. I have four other children besides yourself, and my
expenses do not permit me to save money. This year they have been
especially heavy, indeed I have had to purchase two not inconsiderable
pieces of land which happened to come into the market and were
necessary to complete a property which I have long w