“But consider a little, miss. Where will you ever get such another chance? Only think what a man he is! champion of the world and a gentleman as well. The two things have never happened before, and never will again. I have known lots of champions, but they were not fit company for the like of you. Ned was champion when I married him; and my family thought that I lowered myself in doing it, although I was only a professional dancer on the stage. The men in the ring are common men mostly; and so, though they are the best men in the kingdom, ladies are cut off from their society. But it has been your good luck to take the fancy of one that’s a gentleman. What more could a lady desire? Where will you find his equal in health, strength, good looks, or good manners? As to his character, I can tell you about that. In Melbourne, as you may suppose, all the girls and women were breaking their hearts for his sake. I declare to you that I used to have two or three of them in every evening merely to look at him, and he, poor innocent lad, taking no more notice of them than if they were cabbages. He used to be glad to get away from them by going into the saloon and boxing with the gentlemen; and then they used to peep at him through the door. They never got a wink from him. You were the first, Miss Carew; and, believe me, you will be the last. If there had ever been another he couldn’t have kept it from me; because his disposition is as open as a child’s. And his honesty is beyond everything you can imagine. I have known him to be offered eight hundred pounds to lose a fight that he could only get two hundred by winning, not to mention his chance of getting nothing at all if he lost honestly. You know--for I see you know the world, ma’am--how few men would be proof against such a temptation. There are men high up in their profession--so high that you’d as soon suspect the queen on her throne of selling her country’s battles as them--that fight cross on the sly when it’s made worth their while. My Ned is no low prize-fighter, as is well known; but when he let himself be beat by that little Killarney Primrose, and went out and bought a horse and trap next day, what could I think? There, ma’am, I tell you that of my own husband; and I tell you that Cashel never was beaten, although times out of mind it would have paid him better to lose than to win, along of those wicked betting men. Not an angry word have I ever had from him, nor the sign of liquor have I ever seen on him, except once on Ned’s birthday; and then nothing but fun came out of him in his cups, when the truth comes out of all men. Oh, do just think how happy you ought to be, miss, if you would only bring yourself to look at it in the proper light. A gentleman born and bred, champion of the world, sober, honest, spotless as the unborn babe, able to take his own part and yours in any society, and mad in love with you! He thinks you an angel from heaven and so I am sure you are, miss, in your heart.