TRUE LOVE RUNS ANYTHING BUT SMOOTH--BEING A MELANCHOLY SUBJECT, I CUT IT
SHORT.
The day after my return I met Harry Loring. Alas, how changed was the
once joyous expression of his countenance!
"My dear fellow, what is the matter?" I asked.
"What, don't you know?" he exclaimed. "I thought all the world did, and
laughed at me. False, fickle, heartless flirting!"
"What is all this about?" I asked. "I deeply regret, I feel--"
"Oh, of course you do," he replied, interrupting me petulantly. "I'll
tell you how it was. She had accepted me, as you may have guessed, and
I made sure that there would be no difficulties, as she has plenty of
money, though I have little enough; but when there is sufficient on one
side, what more can be required? At last one day she said, `I wish, Mr
Loring, you would speak to mamma' (she had always called me Harry
before). `Of course I will,' said I, thinking it was a hint to fix the
day; but after I left her, my mind misgave me. Well, my dear fellow, as
I dare say you know, that same having to speak to papa or mamma is the
most confoundedly disagreeable thing of all the disagreeables in life,
when one hasn't got a good rent-roll to show. At least, after all the
billing and cooing, and the romance and sentiment of love, it is such a
worldly, matter-of-fact, pounds-shillings-and-pence affair, that it is
enough to disgust a fellow. However, I nerved myself up for the
encounter, and was ushered into the presence of the old dragon."
"You shouldn't speak of your intended mother-in-law in that way," I
observed, interrupting him.
"My intended--; but you shall hear," he continued. "`Well, sir, I
understand that you have favoured my daughter with an offer,' she began.
I didn't like the tone of her voice nor the look of her green eye,--
they meant mischief. `I have had the happiness of being accepted
by'--`Stay, stay!' she exclaimed, interrupting me. `My daughter would
not think of accepting you without asking my leave; and I, as a mother,
must first know what fortune you can settle on her.' `Every thing she
has got or ever will have,' I replied, as fast as I could utter the
words. `My father and mother are excellent people, and they have kindly
offered us a house, and'--`is that it, Mr Loring? And you have
nothing--absolutely nothing?' shrieked out the old woman. Oh, how I
hated her! `Then, sir, I beg you will clearly understand, that from
this moment all communication between you and my daughter ceases for
ever. I could not have believed that any gentleman would have been
guilty of such impertinence. What! a man without a penny to think of
marrying my daughter, with her beauty and her fortune! There, sir, you
have got my answer; I hope you understand it. Go, sir; go!' I did go,
without uttering another word, though I gave her a look which ought to
have confounded her; and here you see me a miserable, heartbroken man.
I have been in vain trying to get a glimpse of Jane, to ask her if it
was by her will that I am thus discarded, and if so, to whistle her down
the wind; but I have dreadful suspicions that it was a plot between them
to get rid of me, and if so, I have had a happy escape."
I have an idea that his last suspicion was right. Poor fellow, I pitied
him. It struck me as a piece of arrant folly on the part of the mother,
that a nice, gentlemanly, good-looking fellow should be sent to the
right-about simply because he was poor, when the young lady had ample
fortune for them both.
"Look here!" exclaimed Loring, bitterly; "is it not enough to make a man
turn sick with grief and pain as he looks round and sees those he once
knew as blooming, nice girls growing into crusty old maids, because
their parents chose to insist on an establishment and settlement for
them equal to what they themselves enjoy, instead of remembering the
altered circumstances of the times? Not one man in ten has a fortune;
and if the talents and energy of the rising generation are not to be
considered as such, Hymen may blow out his torch and cut his stick, and
the fair maidens of England will have to sing for ever and a day,
`Nobody coming to marry me, nobody coming to woo.'"
I laughed, though I felt the truth of what he said. "But are you
certain that you are disinterested? Were you in no way biassed in your
love by her supposed-fortune?" I asked.
"On my word, I was not. I never thought of the tin," was the answer.
"Then," I replied, "I must say that you are a very ill-used gentleman."