you bis hand in marriage that time to be so long and certainly with great constancy looked forward is now come mr has made bis proposal of marriage to me and ed me to make it known to you and to express his hope that you will take it into your fa consideration silence between them the deadly dock very the distant smoke very black and heavy father said do you think i love mr mr was extremely by this question weu my child be returned i � really � cannot take upon myself to say father pursued in exactly the same voice as before do you ask me to love mr my dear no no i ask nothing father she still pursued does mr ask me to love him hard times really my dear said mr it is to answer your question � difficult to answer it yes or no father certainly my dear because here was something to and it set him up again because the reply depends so materially on the sense in which we use the expression now mr does not do you the injustice and does not do himself the injustice of pretending to fanciful fantastic or i am using terms sentimental mr would have seen you grow up under his eyes to very little purpose if he could so far forget what is due to your good sense not to say to his aa to address you from any such therefore perhaps the expression itself � i merely suggest this to you my dear � may be a little what would you advise me to use in its stead father why my dear said mr completely recovered by this time i would advise you since you ask me to consider this question as you have been accustomed to consider every other question simply as one of fact the ignorant and the giddy may such subjects with fancies and other that have no existence properly viewed � really no existence � but it is no compliment to you to say that you know better now what are the facts of this case you are we will say in numbers twenty years of age mr is we will say in round numbers fifty there is some in your respective years but in your means and positions there is none on the contrary there is a great then the question arises is this one sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage in considering this question it is not unimportant to take into account the of marriage so far as have yet been obtained in england and wales i find on reference to the figures that a large proportion of these marriages are contracted between parties of very ages and tliat the elder of these parties is in rather more t three of these instances the bridegroom it is remarkable as showing the wide of this law that among the natives of the british possessions in india also in a considerable part of china and among the of the b� t means of yet furnished us by yield similar results the u hard i haye mentioned therefore almost ceases to be and all but what do you recommend father asked her reserved composure not in the least affected by these gratifying results that i should substitute for the term i used just now for the expression returned her father it appears to me that nothing can be yourself rigidly to fact the question of fact you state to yourself is does mr ask me to marry him yes he does the sole remaining question then is shall i marry him i think nothing can be than that shall i marry him repeated with great deliberation precisely and it is satisfactory to me as your father my dear to know that you do not come to the consideration of that question with the previous habits of mind and habits of life tiiat belong to many young women no father she returned i do not i now leave you to judge for yourself said mr i have stated ike case as such cases are usually stated among practical minds i have stated it as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its time the rest my dear is for you to decide from the beginning she had sat looking at him as e now leaned back in his chair and bent his deep set eyes upon her in his turn perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast and give him the pent up confidences of her heart but to see it he must have at a bound the artificial he had for many years been between himself and all those subtle of humanity which will the utmost cunning of the last trumpet ever to be shall blow even to wreck the were too many and too high for such a leap with his matter of fact ace he hardened her again and the moment shot away into the depths of the past to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there e moving her eyes from him she sat so long looking silently towards the town that he said at length are you consulting the chimneys of the works hard times seems to be nothing there but languid and smoke yet when the night comes fire bursts out father she answered turning quickly of course i know that i do not see the tion of the remark to do him justice he did not at all she passed it away with a slight motion of her hand and her attention upon him again said father i have often thought that life is very short � this was so distinctly one of his subjects that he interposed it is short no doubt my dear still the average duration of human 