I can easily imagine; for he is far too independent to let us do any thing
for him.

_Mother._--And you can't do much, if they would. Really, they oughtn't to
marry yet.

_Father._--Really, we must leave it to themselves. I don't think you and I
need trouble our heads about it. When Percivale considers himself prepared
to marry, and Wynnie thinks he is right, you may be sure they see their way
to a livelihood without running in hopeless debt to their tradespeople.

_Mother._--Oh, yes! I dare say: in some poky little lodging or other!

_Father._--For my part, Ethelwyn, I think it better to build castles in the
air than huts in the smoke. But seriously, a little poverty and a little
struggling would be a most healthy and healing thing for Wynnie. It hasn't
done Percivale much good yet, I confess; for he is far too indifferent to
his own comforts to mind it: but it will be quite another thing when he has
a young wife and perhaps children depending upon him. Then his poverty may
begin to hurt him, and so do him some good.

* * * * *

It may seem odd that my father and mother should now be taking such
opposite sides to those they took when the question of our engagement was
first started, as represented by my father in "The Seaboard Parish." But
it will seem inconsistent to none of the family; for it was no unusual
thing for them to take opposite sides to those they had previously
advocated,--each happening at the time, possibly enlightened by the
foregone arguments of the other, to be impressed with the correlate truth,