'We must care, my dear. And you yourself, my dear--if this went on for a few years longer, you yourself would become very tired of it. It isn't what we should like for you, if you were our own daughter. Can't you understand that?' 'No, I can't.' 'Yes, my dear, yes. I'm sure you do. Very well. Then there comes this young man. I am not a bit surprised that he should fall in love with you--because I should do it myself if I were not your uncle.' Then she caressed his arm. How was she to keep herself from caressing him, when he spoke so sweetly to her? 'We were not a bit surprised when he came and told us how it was. Nobody could have behaved better. Everybody must admit that. He spoke of you to me and to your aunt as though you were the highest lady in the land.' 'I don't want any one to speak of me as though I were a high lady.' 'I mean in the way of respect, my dear. Every young woman must wish to be treated with respect by any young man who comes after her. Well;--he told us that it was the great wish of his life that you should be his wife. He's a man who has a right to look for a wife, because he can keep a wife. He has a house, and a business, and ready money.' 'What's all that, uncle?' 'Nothing;--nothing at all. No more than that,'--saying which Michel Voss threw his right hand and arm loosely abroad;--'no more than that, if he were not himself well-behaved along with it. We want to see you married to him,--your aunt and I,--because we are sure that he will be a good husband to you.' 'But if I don't love him, Uncle Michel?' 'Ah, my dear; that's where I think it is that you are dreaming, and will go on dreaming till you've lost yourself, unless your aunt and I interfere to prevent it. Love is all very well. Of course you must love your husband. But it doesn't do for young women to let themselves be run away with by romantic ideas;--it doesn't, indeed, my dear. I've heard of young women who've fallen in love with statues and men in armour out of poetry, and grand fellows that they put into books, and there they've been waiting, waiting, waiting, till some man in armour should come for them. The man in armour doesn't come. But sometimes there comes somebody who looks like a man in armour, and that's the worst of all.' 'I don't want a man in armour, Uncle Michel.' 'No, I daresay not. But the truth is, you don't know what you want. The proper thing for a young woman is to get herself well settled, if she has the opportunity. There are people who think so much of money, that they'd give a child almost to anybody as long as he was rich. I shouldn't like to see you marry a man as old as myself.' 'I shouldn't care how old he was if I loved him.' 'Nor to a curmudgeon,' continued Michel, not caring to notice the interruption, 'nor to an ill-tempered fellow, or one who gambled, or one who would use bad words to you. But here is a young man who has no faults at all.'