t young creature, and
she--think of it, Hutch!--she has admitted that she is in love with me;
not romantically in love, for that would be, not absurd, of course,
but a little unreasonable--for while I'm not at all old, yet I know,
of course, that I am not exactly what can be called young--but in love
sensibly and rationally. She wants to take care of me, she says, the
dear child!" (Mr. Port grunted.) "And she has such clever notions in
regard to my health. When we are married--how strange and how delightful
it sounds, Hutch!--she says that we will go immediately to Carlsbad,
where the waters will do my rheumatism a world of good; and from there,
when I am better, we will go on to Vienna, where the dry climate and the
white wines, she thinks, still further will benefit me; and from Vienna,
in order to set me on my feet completely, we are to go on to the North
and spend a winter in Russia--for there is nothing that cures rheumatism
so quickly and so thoroughly, she says (though I never should have
imagined it) as steady and long-continued cold. Just think of her
planning it all out for me so well!

"Yes, Hutch, I love her with all my heart; and what has made me so
nervous to-night is the great happiness that has come to me--it only
came positively this afternoon--and the dread that perhaps, as her
guardian, you know, you might not approve of what we have decided to
do. But you do approve, don't you, Hutch? Of course, in a few months she
will be her own mistress, and your consent to our marriage, as she
very truly says, then will be unnecessary. But even a month seems a
desperately long while to wait; and that is the very shortest time,
she thinks, in which she could get ready--though the dear child has
consented to wait for most of the little things which she wants until we
get on the other side." Mr. Port smiled cynically at the announcement of
this concession. It struck him that when Dorothy was turned loose among
the Paris shops, backed by the capacious purse of a doting elderly
husband, she would mow a rather startlingly broad swath. "So you won't
oppose our marriage, will you, old man? You will consent to my having
this dear young creature for my wife?"

Various emotions found place in Mr. Port's breast as he listened to this
extraordinary declaration and appeal. At first he felt a lively anger
at Dorothy for having, as he coarsely phrased it in his own mind,
so successfully gammoned Mr. Pennington Brown; to this su