“But you know absolutely nothing about her disposition--her temper.” “I’d chance it.” Mrs. Sartwell shook her head mournfully. “How well you reflect the spirit of this scoffing age! People chance everything. Nothing is so important to a man as the solemn, prayerful choice of a wife, for on that choice rests the misery or the happiness of this life. A woman’s great duty--at least it seems so to my poor judgment--is to bring light, comfort, and joy, to her husband’s home. Do you think Edna Sartwell is fitted by temperament or education for this noble task?” “She’d make me happy, if that’s what you mean.” “How little, how little you know her! But then, you know her father, and she’s very like him. Of course, he will never permit you to marry her, if he can prevent it. You are a workingman, and he has no thought or sympathy for those from whose ranks he sprang. He has higher ideas for his daughter; I have long seen that. It is pride, pride, pride! Oh, it will have a terrible fall some day, and perhaps you, poor lad, who talk of chance, are the humble instrument selected by an overruling Providence to bring about the humbling of his pride, without which none of us can enter the Kingdom! I see it all now. I see why he sent Edna to school at Eastbourne, although he said it was because we could not get on together. How little prevarication avails! The deceiver shall himself be deceived! In your seemingly chance meeting with me I see the Hand pointing towards truth. Still,” continued Mrs. Sartwell reflectively, as though speaking more to herself than to her hearer, “there is no doubt that, if you took Edna’s fancy, she would marry you in spite of her father or any one else. I have long warned her father that such a time is coming; but alas! my words are unheeded in this house, and the time has come sooner than I expected. I have wondered for some weeks past what was in Edna’s mind. I thought that perhaps she was thinking of Barnard Hope, but I see now I was mistaken. No, she was very likely thinking of you, and her father, discovering it, has packed her off to High Cliff School at Eastbourne, where he probably hopes you cannot visit her. She is a wayward, obstinate child, impulsive, and difficult to manage. She thinks her father is perfection, so you may form your own opinion of how defective her judgment is. Yes, I should not be at all surprised if, when you tell her you love her, she would at once propose to run away with you. Nothing Edna Sartwell would do or say could surprise me.” Marsten, who had been very uneasy while a forced listener to this exposition of the girl’s character, now rose abruptly, and said he must leave; he had already, he said, taken up too much of Mrs. Sartwell’s time.