to get married. I do not know that she had even made up her mind that
marriage would be a good thing for her; but she bad an untroubled
conviction that, if she did marry, her husband should have a house and
an income. She had no reliance on her own power of living on a potato,
and with one new dress every year. A comfortable home, with nice,
comfortable things around her, ease in money matters and elegance in
life, were charms with which she had not quarrelled, and, though she did
not wish to be hard upon Mr. Saul on account of his mistake, she did
feel that in making his proposition he had blundered. Because she chose
to do her duty as a parish clergyman's daughter, he thought himself
entitled to regard her as a devotee, who would be willing to resign
everything to become the wife of a clergyman, who was active, indeed,
but who had not one shilling of income beyond his curacy. "Mr. Saul,"
she said, "I can assure you I need take no time for further thinking. It
cannot be as you would have it."

"Perhaps I have been abrupt. Indeed, I feel that it is so, though I did
not know how to avoid it."

"It would have made no difference. Indeed, indeed, Mr. Saul, nothing of
that kind could have made a difference."

"Will you grant me this--that I may speak to you again on the same
subject after six months?"

"It cannot do any good."

"It will do this good--that for so much time you will have had the idea
before you." Fanny thought that she would have Mr. Saul himself before
her, and that that would be enough. Mr. Saul, with his rusty clothes and