And I am nineteen now. And I shall not marry
without your consent."
"Margie, you must marry Mr. Linmere. Do not hope to do differently. It
is your duty. He has lived single all these years waiting for you. He
will be kind to you, and you will be happy. Prepare to receive him with
becoming respect."
Mr. Trevlyn considered his duty performed, and went out for his customary
walk.
At dinner Mr. Linmere arrived. Margie met him with cold composure. He
scanned her fair face and almost faultless form, with the eye of a
connoisseur, and congratulated himself on the fortune which was to give
him, such a bride without the perplexity of a wooing. She was beautiful
and attractive, and he had feared she might be ugly, which would have
been a dampener on his satisfaction. True, her wealth would have
counter-balanced any degree of personal deformity; but Mr. Paul Linmere
admired beauty, and liked to have pretty things around him.
To tell the truth, he was sadly in need of money. It was fortunate that
his old friend, Mr. Harrison, Margie's dead father, had taken it into his
head to plight his daughter's troth to him while she was yet a child. Mr.
Harrison had been an eccentric man; and from the fact that in many points
of religious belief he and Mr.
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