Dr. Davenal paused, feeling that she was hopelessly inexperienced. "My dear, what do you suppose it costs us to live as we do?--here, in this house?" "Ever so much," was Caroline's lucid answer. "It costs me something like twelve hundred a-year, Caroline, and I have no house-rent to pay." She did not answer. Miss Davenal's sharp eyes caught sight of Caroline's damaging fingers, and she called out to know what she was doing with the dessert napkin. Caroline laid it on the table beside her plate. "I cannot afford to increase Mr. Cray's salary very much," continued Dr. Davenal. "To reduce my own style of living I do not feel inclined, and Edward draws largely upon me. Extravagant chaps are those young officers!" added the doctor, falling into abstraction. "There's not one of them, as I believe, Makes his pay suffice." He paused. Caroline took up a biscuit and began crumbling it on her plate. "The very utmost that I could afford to give him would be four hundred per annum," resumed Dr. Davenal "and I believe that I shall inconvenience myself to do this. But that's not it. There"---- "Oh, Uncle Richard, it is ample. Four hundred a-year! We could not spend it." He shook his head at the impulsive interruption; at its unconscious ignorance. "Caroline, I was going to say that the mere income is not all the question. If you marry Mr. Cray, he can make no settlement upon you; more than that, he has no home, no furniture. I think he has been precipitate; inconsiderately so, few men would ask a young lady to be their wife until they had a house to take her to; or money in hand to procure one." Caroline's eyes filled with tears. She had hard work to keep them from dropping. "Carine," he said caressingly, "is it quite _irrevocable_, this attachment?" The tears went down on the crumbled biscuit. She murmured some words which the doctor but imperfectly caught; only just sufficiently so to gather that it _was_ irrevocable--or that at any rate the young lady thought so. He sighed. "Listen to me, child. I should never attempt to oppose your inclinations; I should not think of forbidding any marriage that you had set your heart upon. If you have fixed on Mr. Cray, or he on you--it comes to the same--I will not set my will against it. But one thing I must urge upon you both--to wait." "Do you dislike Mr. Cray, Uncle Richard?" "Dislike him! no, child. Have I not made him my partner? I like him personally very much. I don't know whether he has much stability," continued the doctor, in a musing tone, as though he were debating the question with himself. "But let that pass. My objection to him for you, Caroline, is chiefly on a pecuniary score." "I am sure we shall have enough," she answered, in a lower tone. "If I give my consent, Carry, I shall give it under protest; and make a bargain with you at the same time." Caroline lifted her eyes. His voice had turned to a jesting one. "What protest?---what bargain?" she asked.