"Not like it!" echoed Mark. "It's worse than that. You should have seen the way she was in this afternoon. It won't hurt the grounds." "Not at all. But she cannot be brought to see that it will not. In point of fact, the sound of it is worse than the reality will be. It does sound ill, I confess,--railway-sheds upon one's grounds! I was in hopes of being the first to break the news to her: so much lies in the telling of a thing; in the impression first imparted." "She said this afternoon that it all lay with you. That you could spare her grounds if you would." "I wish it did lie with me: I would do my best to find another spot and spare them. The company have fixed upon the site, Low has given his concurrence, and there's no more to be said or done. I am very sorry, but it has been no doing of mine. Will you go with me to the doctor's, Mark?" Marcus hesitated, and then said he had rather not call that evening. "Why?" asked Oswald. "Well--the fact is,--I don't see why I may not tell you,--I have been asking the doctor this afternoon for Caroline. He did not give me a positive answer, one way or the other; and I don't think it will look well to press a visit upon them just now." Oswald Cray's was not a demonstrative countenance: a self-controlled man's rarely is: but certainly it exhibited marked surprise now, and he gazed at his brother inquiringly. "You are surely not thinking of marrying?" "Yes, I am. Why should I not think of it?" "But what have you to marry upon? What means?" "Oh--I must get Dr. Davenal to increase my share. By a word he dropped this afternoon when we were talking of it, I fancy he would do it: would increase it to four hundred a-year. We might manage upon that." Oswald Cray made no immediate reply. He, the self-reliant man, would have felt both pain and shame at the very thought of marrying upon the help of others. "You are thinking it's not enough, Oswald?" "It might be enough for prudent people. But I don't think it would be found enough by you and Caroline Davenal. Mark, I fancy--I shall not offend you?--fancy you are not of a prudent turn." "I don't know that I am. But any man can be prudent when there's a necessity that he should be." "It has not always proved so." "I see you think me a spendthrift," said Mark good-humouredly. "Not exactly that. I think you could not live upon as small an income as some can. Dr. Davenal gives you, I believe, two hundred a-year, and you have been with him six months: my opinion is, Mark, that at the twelvemonth's end you will find the two hundred has nothing like kept you. You will be looking about for another hundred to pay debts." "Are you so particularly saving yourself?" retorted Mark. "That is not the question, Mark; I am not going to be married," answered Oswald, with a smile. "But I do save." "If the doctor will give me four hundred a-year to begin with, there's no need to wait." "You have no furniture." "That's easily ordered," said Mark.