"Certainly not to me. Ethel, whom I chose, had even less. If you think well to dispense with fortune in your wife, George, we have no right to object to it. I am _glad_ that you have chosen Maria Hastings." But there was Janet yet to come. George went home in a fly, and threw himself on the first sofa he could find. Janet, full of concern, came to him. "I said you were attempting too much, George!" she cried. "But you never will listen to me." "I'm sure, Janet, I listen to you dutifully. I have come home to consult you now," he added, a little spirit of mischief dancing in his gay blue eyes. "It is not fatigue or illness that has brought me. Janet, I am going to be married." Janet Godolphin's pulses beat more quickly. She sat down and folded her hands with a gesture of pain. "I knew it would be so. You need not have tried to deceive me yesterday, lad." "But the young lady's friends refuse her to me, unless my family openly sanction and approve of the match," went on George. "You'll be kindly over it, won't you, Janet?" "No, lad. I cannot forbid it; I have no authority over you: but, sanction it, I never will. What has put it into your head to marry in this haste? You, with one foot in the grave, as may be said, and one out of it?" "Well, you see, Janet, you won't trust me abroad without some one to look after me," he slowly answered, as if he were arguing some momentous question. "You say you can't go, and Bessy can't go, and Cecil may not, and I say I won't have Margery. What was I to do, but marry? I cannot take a young lady, you know, without first marrying her." Janet Godolphin's grave eyes were fixed on vacancy, and her thin lips drawn in to pressure. She did not answer. "Thomas heartily approves," he continued. "I have been with him." "Thomas must do as he likes," said Janet. "But, unless you have unwittingly misunderstood him, George, you are telling me a deliberate falsehood. He will never approve of your marrying Charlotte Pain." "Charlotte Pain!" repeated George, with an air of as much surprise as if it were genuine, "who was talking about Charlotte Pain? What put her into your head?" Janet's face flushed. "Were _you_ not talking of Charlotte Pain?" "Not I," said George. "In spite of the compliments you pay my truthfulness, Janet, I _meant_ what I said to you yesterday--that I did not intend to make her my wife. I am speaking of Maria Hastings." "Eh, lad, but that's good news!" George burst into a laugh. "What green geese you must all have been, Janet! Had you used your eyes, you might have detected this long time past that my choice was fixed on Maria. But the Rector doubts whether you will approve. He will not promise her to me until he has your sanction."