"My family is a very good one; in point of fact, as good as yours, Sir John--if you will pardon me for saying so thus pointedly," urged the curate in his gentle voice. "And though----"
"Oh, bother!" interrupted Sir John, having no counter argument particularly at hand. "That goes for nothing. What are your prospects?"
"They are not great. Perhaps I ought to say that I have no prospects as yet. But, sir----"
"Now come! that's honest. No prospects! And yet you must go making love to my daughter."
"I have not done that, sir, in one sense--'made love.' Hardly a word, I think, has passed between myself and Miss Whitney that you might not have heard. But we have, notwithstanding, been fully aware of the state of each other's heart----"
"The state of each other's fiddlestick," spluttered Sir John. "A nice pair of you, I must say! And pray, what did you think it would come to?"
"What Miss Whitney may have thought I have not presumed to ask. For myself, I confess I am cherishing hopes for the future. It is some little time now since I have been wishing to speak to you, Sir John: and I intended, if you were so kind as not to entirely reject me, to write to my father, Dr. Leafchild, and lay the whole case before him. I think he can help me later if he will; and I certainly believe he will be only too glad to do it."
"And, bless my heart and mind, how long do you suppose you might have to wait? A dozen years. Twenty years, for all you know. The curate who was here before you, poor Bell, had been waiting more than twenty years for one. It came to him last year, and he was forty-seven years old."
"And a fine living it is, now he has it!" went on Sir John. "No, no, sir: Helen Whitney cannot be dragged into that kind of fate."
"I should be the last to drag her, or wish to drag her into it. Believe that, Sir John. But, if I had a good living given to me, then I should like her to share it. And I think that my father would perhaps allow me some private means also, for Helen's sake. He has money, and could do it."
"But all those fancies and notions are just so many vapours, clouds up in the sky, and no better, don't you see! You young men are sanguine and foolish; you lose sight of facts in fallacies. We must look at what is, not at what might be. Why, you are not yet even a priest!"