At the age of sixteen did he not
declare his resolve to wed the daughter of old Sally Budge, who went
about selling watercress? and was there not a desperate conflict at
home before this project could be driven from his head? It was but
the first of many such instances. Had he been left to his own
devices, he would already, like numbers of his coevals, have been
supporting (or declining to support) a wife and two or three
children. At present he was 'engaged' to Clem Peckover; that was an
understood thing. His father did not approve it, but this connection
was undeniably better than those he had previously declared or
concealed. Bob, it seemed evident, was fated to make a
_mesalliance_--a pity, seeing his parts and prospects. He
might have aspired to a wife who had scarcely any difficulty with
her _h_'s; whose bringing-up enabled her to look with compassion on
girls who could not play the piano; who counted among her relatives
not one collarless individual.
Clem, as we have seen, had already found, or imagined, cause for
dissatisfaction with her betrothed. She was well enough acquainted
with Bob's repute, and her temper made it improbable, to say the
least, that the course of wooing would in this case run very
smoothly.
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