"You travelled faster than the storm, then. It was quite early, I should say, when it came on us; though I cannot name the hour, having forgot my watch." "Had nobody a watch? There were four of you." "I do not know. The fact is, I was interested in other things." "Such as--for instance----" "Well, I was---- But really, Susan, I cannot speak of it in this cold-blooded way. The truth is, I--I have asked Rose Hillyard to marry me." Mrs Naylor sat bolt-upright in her chair, and turned to look at him, with the red spot burning in either cheek. She lifted her hands, but whether she intended to clasp them or to do something else, was not apparent. His unabashed assurance seemed to petrify her, for though her lips were parted she did not speak. "And she has been so kind as to say yes.... Wish me joy, dear Susan, of my happiness. It is more than I can believe to be possible." Before she could protest, he had taken her hands in his and shaken them, and was imprinting a kiss upon the flushed place on her cheek. "Let go, Joseph! You will suffocate me. This is more than---- This is something---- You must be out of your senses." "Very nearly, Susan. I am the happiest man alive!" "She is not half your age." "She is twenty-five." "And you are forty-seven. May and December! How can you possibly get on together?" "Where love is, Susan, what else matters?" "At your age, Joseph, you should have more sense than yield to such raptures. You must know you are talking nonsense." "Come! you know better than that. It is your commonplace worldliness that is nonsense; and you know it. You were once a bride yourself." "I was young then, Joseph. We get sense--or we should--as we grow older." "Rose is young. Why may she not have fresh true feeling, just as you had yourself?" "But has she? Does she go into raptures as you do, I wonder?" "One would not like a girl to display her feelings too openly before marriage. You would call it boldness." "Has she any feeling to display? Can we expect her to have that kind of feeling for a man who might be her father?" "My dear Susan, time will show. I bring love to the union enough for both, and it will be strange if I do not make her happy. If you knew the story of my youth--which you do not, and it is not needful that you should--but you have known my later life; how I have been alone while others have been making themselves tender ties and households. Do you think it can be anything but dreary to feel that you have no one to call your own--that you can shelter your whole family under your hat-brim?" "What of your nieces? What of poor Caleb's children?" "You know I am fond of them, Susan. I do not think you will accuse me of being a neglectful uncle or brother-in-law." "And yet you are going to cast us off, and put this stranger in our places." "Not in your places. Why should it make any difference between us? The girls like her." "That only shows their innocence and ignorance of the world, poor things."