“Your affectionate nephew, “FRED BINGHAM.”
“He is a strange young fellow, Alice. Never does anything like anyone else. It is just as well though; as he says, two marriages on the cards would have been rather overpowering.”
“It is all a matter of opinion, uncle. I should not like a husband of mine to marry me in that sort of way, as if he were ashamed of the whole affair.”
“I don't suppose he's ashamed, Alice. I am afraid though, very much afraid by the name, Oldham you see, that he has married into the cotton mills. It doesn't matter much in his case. He's a railway contractor, and I suppose not particular. Had it been Frank, it would have been a serious matter. I shouldn't like to think of a cotton spinner's daughter at Wyvern Hall. As it is, her money—you see he says she has a snug fortune—will be very useful to him. There's no romance about Fred.”
“I should think not,” Alice said scornfully.
“No,” her uncle went on, unheeding the tone, “not a bit. He's wide awake, is Master Fred. You see she's no father, is just twenty-one, and he married her suddenly. I shouldn't be at all surprised,” and he laughed, “if there was no time to have settlements drawn out.”
“Oh, uncle,” Alice said impetuously, “how can you laugh? to me all this is shocking.”
“Well, my dear, frankly it's not nice; and as I said, if Fred were going to have Wyvern Hall, I shouldn't like it at all. Still, Alice, I think you are inclined to be a little too hard upon Fred. He is a shrewd man of the world, no doubt, but you see you don't know anything about men of the world, and so these things go a little against your grain. I like Fred Bingham very much; he's a pleasant, amiable, chatty young fellow, although he has not been brought up, so to speak, in the traditions of a gentleman. I like him, but I don't do more. I shall, of course, leave him some money when I die, but I confess I should never really care for him as I do for Frank, with all his headstrong ways and the annoyance he has given me.”
“Thank you, uncle. There is, in my opinion, no more comparison between my two cousins than between light and dark.”
“Yes, Alice, I know your opinions on the subject, but as I said, you are not an impartial judge. Women never are when it is between a man of birth who has a fortune and no work to do, and one who has to fight his way.”