about those changes in his lady-love which a life in London would
require--and some word he said also--some single slight word as to the
higher station in life to which he would exalt his bride. Patience
bore it--for her father and Miss La Smyrger were in the room--she bore
it well, speaking no syllable of anger, and enduring, for the moment,
the implied scorn of the old parsonage. Then the evening broke up, and
Captain Broughton walked back to Oxney Combe with his aunt. "Patty,"
her father said to her before they went to bed, "he seems to me to be a
most excellent young man." "Dear papa," she answered, kissing him.
"And terribly deep in love," said Mr. Woolsworthy. "Oh, I don't know
about that," she answered, as she left him with her sweetest smile.
But though she could thus smile at her father's joke, she had already
made up her mind that there was still something to be learned as to her
promised husband before she could place herself altogether in his
hands. She would ask him whether he thought himself liable to injury
from this proposed marriage; and though he should deny any such
thought, she would know from the manner of his denial what his true
feelings were.

And he, too, on that night, during his silent walk with Miss Le
Smyrger, had entertained some similar thoughts. "I fear she is
obstinate," he said to himself; and then he had half accused her of
being sullen also. "If that be her temper, what a life of misery I
have before me!"

"Have you fixed a day yet?" his aunt asked him as they came near to her
house.

"No, not yet; I don't know whether it will suit me to fix it before I
leave."