Time passed, and neither of the gentlemen whom Mrs. Dixon had thought of became more marked in their attentions. Nay, what with Ada’s magnificence, and the scarcity of matches worthy her consideration, there were even mortifications in store for the maternal ambition. It was a distinct if not an acknowledged mortification when Mary Metcalfe, a quiet-looking girl, with three sisters under her—such a family of them,—a girl with no beauty to boast of, and not a scrap of fashionable education; a girl Ada’s own age to a day, and who had once been her playfellow—got engaged to one of the most well-to-do young farmers in all the country round. Not that Ada would have listened for a moment to any farmer but a gentleman-farmer, and of course young Simpson would never have had the audacity to ask her. (Whether from bashfulness or other reason, it is quite certain that young Simpson never did ask her.) And yet, it was distinctly mortifying to sit in one’s pew, and hear Mr. Johnson read out the banns of James Simpson and Mary Metcalfe. No one grudged Mary a good husband, poor girl; but Ada—it really seemed as if, in the proper order of things, Ada should have come first. While the coming gentleman of high degree tarried, Roger Camm appeared upon the scene, and very soon made it manifest that he had the audacity, not only to love, but to declare himself. Ada, to Mrs. Dixon’s severe disappointment, was much pleased, charmed, nay, self-complacent. Mrs. Dixon alone was really against the match, saying many disparaging things of the suitor’s appearance, position, and prospects, and of everything connected with him; and persisting, with the tenacity of a weak and vain woman about her favourite object, that if they would only wait, Ada would do much better. Mr. Dixon was very firm. ‘Ada could not do much better,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have wished a better husband for her: he’s strong, and he’s clever, and he knows what he is about. They trust him absolutely, his employers do. He’s making an uncommonly good thing out of those jute factories down the river, and if he isn’t a partner in the concern within a few years, my name is not Simon Dixon. I wouldn’t force the girl, but she tells me she wants him, and if so she shall have him; and thankful I am for her to do so well. So let’s hear no more about it.’ No more was said about it, openly; but Mrs. Dixon rebelled in secret. She knew Dixon too well to oppose him overtly, but she thought to herself that Ada and Roger were not married yet. She disliked him heartily: his awkward gait, his rough ways; his habit of laughing at her notions about gentility; the queer, rude things he said. And, above all, he galled her by insisting upon calling himself a working man, and telling Ada how she was going to be a working man’s wife. ‘As if I brought her up for that!’ the mother indignantly thought. He was just a bear, she felt, and about as fit as a bear to marry their Ada.