"Yes, I do; how many times more do you want me to say I do?"

"Of _course_ if you are going to be rude--"

"No--you understand what I mean, don't you? I am very fond of the
missis; if I weren't I shouldn't marry, that goes without saying, but
one likes to have things settled. I have been with her now more thantwo
years. I've thought it out. There's nothing like having things
settled. I'm sure I'm right."

The young men looked at each other in silence--Frank quite at a loss;
he could nowise enter into the feelings of a man whom an undue sense
of order and regularity compelled to marry his mistress, as it did to
waste half his life in copying letters and making entries in a diary.

"Then why did you consult me?" he said, for he came to the point
sharply when his brain was not muddled with sentiment.

"I am not heir to an entailed estate, like you."

"I am not heir to an entailed estate. Mount Rorke might marry to-
morrow."

"He is not likely to do that. It is an understood thing that you are
heir. My father might cut me off with a shilling if he were to hear I
had married without his consent, and I should be left with the few
hundreds which I draw out of the distillery, a poor man all my life."

"If that is so, why marry? You are not in love with her--at least not