‘Oh, never mind! Make no apology. I know you haven’t much money, but of
course you’ll live with me. We’ll take in boarders, and I’ll be bound
that we’ll get along all right.’
It was a bad situation. He hadn’t even looked love at Sarah. ‘I had no
idea of’—— he began; when she held up her hands saying: ‘I know you
hadn’t; but it’s all right. With your wages and what the boarders bring
in, we shall get along as snug as possible. All I ask is that you be
good to her; Sarah has a tender heart, and if you should be cross and
ugly, it would break her down in a week.’
The young man’s eyes stood out like cocoa-nuts in a shop-window, and he
rose up and tried to say something.
‘Never mind about the thanks,’ she cried; ‘I don’t believe in long
courtships. The eleventh of January is my birthday, and it would be
nice for you to be married on that day.’
‘But—but—but’—— he gasped.
‘There, there! I don’t expect any speech in reply,’ she laughed. ‘You
and Sarah settle it to-night, and I’ll advertise for twelve boarders
straight away, I’ll try to be a model mother-in-law. I believe I’m
good-tempered and kind-hearted, though I did once follow a young man
two hundred miles and shoot off the top of his head for agreeing to
marry my daughter and then quitting the county.’ She patted him on the
head and sailed out. And now the young man wants advice. He wants to
know whether he had better get in the way of a locomotive or slide off
the wharf. If ever a young bachelor was ‘sold,’ Sarah’s young man was
in that predicament.