‘Well, you are here pretty often,’ the aggrieved Oliver put it mildly. ‘I am afraid your other engagements must suffer from your paying us the compliment of being so much at Friarton Mill; and your brother—he is not with you this morning—will miss you.’ ‘Oh! hang Horry!’ exclaimed Harry hastily; ‘no, I don’t mean that, of course, and old Horry won’t stand in the way. He’s all right. Besides, if one’s father and mother, when a fellow possesses them, an’t counted, a brother can’t have much to say either way, can he?’ ‘I don’t know what you’re after,’ said Oliver in perfect sincerity. ‘If I were a supernumerary in an old play, I ought to exclaim, “Anan,” to that last enigmatical sentence of yours.’ ‘Well, it ain’t easy to come out with it,’ protested Harry, struggling with what was, for him, the most extraordinary hesitation. ‘Your sister, Constable—you must have seen she has been goodness itself to me. I know she will have to furnish the brains and backbone, for my head-piece ain’t worth much, and my pluck is of the rough and ready sort, but since she graciously consents to do for me and Horry—to make a true farmer’s wife, which will be an inestimable advantage to us—I may take it that you will not have any great objection to accepting me for a brother-in-law?’ ‘Stanhope, have you lost your wits?’ burst out Oliver. ‘Come, there must be no more of this absurd nonsense. I tell you I will have no such foolish jesting where my sister is concerned.’ ‘Never was farther from jesting in my life!’ declared poor Harry indignantly. ‘Then let me say, once for all, you must get rid of this idiotic idea. It won’t do. My sister is not for a fellow like you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you have somehow tumbled into the hugest blunder, and I must speak out. I can answer for Fan: she did not dream of encouraging such a vain delusion, she will be terribly vexed and annoyed. This comes of masquerading and making-believe. It seems to me you don’t want a wife for twenty years to come: when you do, take my advice—if you will excuse me for offering it, after what I have said—marry strictly within your own class; you of all fellows require such a safeguard, and the more influential your wife’s people, the better both for her and you!’ muttered Oliver _sotto voce_. Then he resumed aloud, ‘Wait till you can persuade a lady to share your lot—if you will cultivate prudence, you may make it not a bad one—as a gentleman-farmer.’ Harry was looking at Oliver with such a strong sense of superior knowledge and wisdom that it disarmed any rising resentment on the lad’s part, at the tone of provoked disdainful repudiation of the proposal which Oliver could not help betraying. The contrast between the truth as Harry realised it and Oliver’s undoubting convictions, brought out the comic element in the affair so dear to Harry’s boyish heart, even in the serious mood which had been on him, when he ‘declared his intentions.’