"Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Beecher, throwing back his head, and looking full at me over the top of his spectacles; "who would ever have thought it? I mean--you seem so young, such a boy." "I am twenty-six, and Eleanor, I believe, is twenty." "True, true; yes, she was twenty last June--but--but--why, of course, she must decide for herself--that is, if you are sure you love her." I felt myself growing red; but Mr. Beecher seemed to interpret this as a sign of my ardent devotion, and anger at its being doubted, for he went on: "Yes, yes! I beg your pardon. I never heard anything about you but in your favour. Of course, I have nothing to say but that I am very happy. Of course," more quickly, "it's a great honour; that is, of course you know my daughter has no fortune to match with yours." "I am perfectly indifferent to that." "Of course--of course--well, it must rest with Eleanor. She is a good girl, and I can trust her choice. Will you not go in and see my--Mrs. Beecher?" he added with relief, as if struck with a bright idea; and I left him slashing off green bunches and doing awful havoc among his grape-vines. He did not appear so overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of an alliance with me as Eleanor had seemed to expect. Mrs. Beecher, on her part, took the tidings in rather a melancholy way; she wept, and said Eleanor was a dear good child, and she hoped we would make each other happy, but there was more despondency than joy in her manner; either she was accustomed to look at every new event in that light, or, as I suspected, this piece of good fortune was rather too overwhelming. I thought many times in the next two months of the man who received the gift of an elephant. I played the part of elephant in the Beecher _menage_, and was sometimes terribly oppressed by my own magnificence. Perhaps an engagement may be a pleasant period of one's life under some circumstances; decidedly mine was not. I insisted on its being as short as possible, thinking that the sooner it was over the better for all parties. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher might have had some comfort in getting Eleanor ready to be married to some nice young man with a rising salary and a cottage at Roxbury; but to get her ready to be married to me was a task which I was afraid would be the death of both of them. Poor Eleanor herself was worn to a shadow with it all, and I remember looking forward with some satisfaction to bringing her up again after we were married.