"Then why not shorten our engagement? Surely it has now lasted long enough. There is no reason why you should submit to any tyranny when you can escape from it. If you dislike your father's rule, cut it and come to me; you don't dislike _me_." "No; but I should dislike being married very much indeed." "Why?" impatiently. "I don't know," I return, provokingly; "but I am sure I should. 'Better to bear the ills we have, _et cetera_.'" "You are trifling," says he, angrily, "why not say at once you detest the idea of having to spend your life with me? I believe I am simply wasting my time endeavoring to gain an affection that will never be mine." "Then don't waste any more of it," I retort, tapping the ground petulantly with my foot while fixing my gaze with affected unconcern upon a thick, white cloud that rests far away in the eternal blue. "I have no wish to stand in your light. Pray leave me--I shan't mind it in the least--and don't throw away any more of your precious moments." "Idle advice. I can't leave you now, and you know it. I must only go on squandering my life, I suppose, until the end. I do believe the greatest misfortune that ever befell me was my meeting with you." "Thank you. You are extremely rude and unkind to me, Marmaduke. If this is your way of making love, I must say I don't like it." "I don't suppose you do, or anything else connected with me Of course it was an unfortunate thing for me, my coming down here and falling idiotically in love with a girl who does not care whether I am dead or alive." "That is untrue. I care very much indeed about your being alive." "Oh! common humanity would suggest that speech." He turns abruptly and walks a few paces away from me. We are both considerably out of temper by this time, and I make a solemn vow to myself not to open my lips again until he offers an apology for what I am pleased to term his odious crossness. Two seconds afterwards I break my vow. "Why on earth could you not have fallen in love with Dora?" I cry, petulantly, to the back of his head. "She would do you some credit, and she would love you, too. Every one would envy you if you married Dora, she never says the wrong thing; and she is elegant and very pretty--is she not? "Very pretty," replies he, dryly; "almost lovely, I think, with her fair hair and beautiful complexion and sweet smile. Yes Dora is more than pretty." "If you admire her so much, why don't you marry her?" say I, sharply. Although I am not in love with Marmaduke, I strongly object to his expressing unlimited admiration for my sister or any other woman.