“What then! why, we cannot both have Alicia Barton.” “Very true. I would not have her if you would give her to me.” “Would not have her!” cried Marvel, with a look of joyous astonishment: “but, did not you tell me you were in love with her?” “Not I. You told it to yourself. I said I was in love; but cannot a man be in love with any woman in this whole world but Miss Barton?” Marvel capered about the room with the most lively expressions of delight, shook hands with his cousin, as if he would have pulled his arm off, and then suddenly stopping, said, “But what do you think of my Alicia? Though you are not in love with her, I hope you think well of her?” “I must see more of her before I am qualified to speak.” “Nay, nay, no drawbacks: out with it. I must know what you think of her at this time being.” “At this time being, then, I think, she is what they call a--coquette.” “Oh, there you are out, indeed, cousin Wright! she’s more of what they call a prude than a coquette.” “To you, perhaps; but not to me, cousin. Let every one speak of her as they find,” replied Wright. Marvel grew warm in defence of Miss Barton’s prudery; and at last ended by saying, “that he’d stake his life upon it, she was no jilt. If she had taken a fancy to you, Wright, she would honestly tell me so, I’m convinced; and, when she finds you are thinking of another woman, her pride would soon make her think no more of you. ‘Tis but little she could have thought in the few minutes you were in her company; and it is my opinion she never thought of you at all--no offence.” “No offence, I promise you,” said Wright; “but let us put her to the trial: do you keep your own counsel; go on courting her your own way, and let me go mine. Don’t you say one word of my being here in York; but put her off about the sale of Clover-hill, till such time as you are sure of her heart.” To this proposal Marvel joyfully agreed; and, as to the time of trial, Wright asked only one week. His cousin then told him the new scheme, from which he expected to make so much: it had been suggested by Alicia’s brother. “I am to sell Clover-hill; and, with the money that I get for it, Barton and I are to build and fit up a theatre in Lincoln, and be the managers ourselves. I assure you, he says, and they all say, I should make a figure on the stage: and Miss Barton whispered, in my hearing, that I should make a capital Lothario,” added Marvel, throwing himself into a stage attitude, and reciting, in a voice that made Wright start, “‘Earth, Heav’n, and fair Calista, judge the combat.’”