"That I give the consent in opposition to my better judgment. The bargain is, that when you find you have married imprudently and cannot make both ends meet, you don't turn round and blame me." She bent her eyes with a smile and shook her head in answer, and began twisting the chain that lay upon her fair neck, the bracelets on her pretty arms. She wore the same rich dress that she had worn in the afternoon, as did Sara; but the high bodies had been exchanged for low ones, the custom for dinner at Dr. Davenal's. "I will not withhold my consent. But," he added, his tone changing to the utmost seriousness, "I shall recommend you both to wait. To wait at least a year or two. You are very young, only twenty." "I am twenty-one, Uncle Richard," she cried out. "It is Sara who is only twenty." He smiled at the eagerness. One year seems so much to the young. "Twenty-one, then: since last week, I believe. And Mark is three or four years older. You can well afford to wait. A year or two's time may make a wonderful difference in the position of affairs. Your share of that disputed property may have come to you, rendering a settlement upon you feasible; and Mark, if he chooses to be saving, may have got chairs and tables together. Perhaps I may increase his share at once to help him do it." "Would you be so kind as enlighten me as to the topic of your conversation with Caroline, Dr. Davenal?" The interruption come from Miss Bettina. Deaf as she was, it was impossible for her not to perceive that some subject of unusual moment was being discussed, and nothing annoyed her more than to fancy she was purposely kept in the dark. For the last five minutes she had sat ominously upright in her chair. Very upright she always did sit, at all times and seasons; but in moments of displeasure this stiff uprightness was unpleasantly perceptible. Dr. Davenal rose from his seat and walked towards her, bending his face a little. He had a dislike to talk to her on her very deaf days: it made him hoarse for hours afterwards. "Caroline wants to be married, Bettina?" Miss Bettina did catch the right words this time, but she doubted it. She had not yet learnt to look upon Caroline as aught but a child. Could the world have gone round in accordance with the ideas of Miss Bettina, nobody with any regard to propriety would have married in it until the age of thirty was past. Her cold grey eyes and her mouth gradually opened as she looked from her brother to her niece, from her niece to her brother. "Wants to be what, did you say?" "To be married, Aunt Bett," cried out the doctor. "It's the fashion, it seems, with the young folks nowadays! You were not in so great a hurry when you were young?"