“Of course not!” said the old man with emphasis; “of course not!  Whatever faults he had, he’d be too sensible for that.  Don’t you marry for a face, Tom!  I didn’t.”

Tom opened his eyes at this last assertion; but humbly expressed his intention of not falling into that snare.

“Ah? you don’t believe me:  well, she was a beautiful woman.—­I’d like to see her fellow now in the county!—­and I won’t deny I was proud of her.  But she had ten thousand pounds, Tom.  And as for her looks, why, if you’ll believe me, after we’d been married three months, I didn’t know whether she had any looks or not.  What are you smiling at, you young rogue?”

“Report did say that one look of Mrs. Armsworth’s, to the last, would do more to manage Mr. Armsworth than the opinions of the whole bench of bishops.”

“Report’s a liar, and you’re a puppy!  You don’t know yet whether it was a pleasant look, or a cross one, lad.  But still—­well, she was an angel, and kept old Mark straighter than he’s ever been since:  not that he’s so very bad, now.  Though I sometimes think Mary’s better even than her mother.  That girl’s a good girl, Tom.”

“Report agrees with you in that, at least.”

“Fool if it didn’t.  And as for looks—­I can speak to you as to my own son—­Why, handsome is that handsome does.”

“And that handsome has; for you must honestly put that into the account.”

“You think so?  So do I!  Well, then, Tom,”—­and here Mark was seized with a tendency to St. Vitus’s dance, and began overhauling every button on his coat, twitching up his black gloves, till (as undertakers’ gloves are generally meant to do) they burst in half-a-dozen places; taking off his hat, wiping his head fiercely, and putting the hat on again behind before; till at last he snatched his arm from Tom’s, and gripping him by the shoulder, recommenced—­

“You think so, eh?  Well, I must say it, so I’d better have it out now, hatband or none!  What do you think of the man who married my daughter, face and all?”

“I should think,” quoth Tom, wondering who the happy man could be, “that he would be so lucky in possessing such a heart, that he would be a fool to care about the face.”

“Then be as good as your word, and take her yourself.  I’ve watched you this last week, and you’ll make her a good husband.  There, I have spoken; let me hear no more about it.”

And Mark half pushed Tom from him, and puffed on by his side, highly excited.

If Mark had knocked the young Doctor down, he would have been far less astonished and far less puzzled too.  “Well,” thought he, “I fancied nothing could throw my steady old engine off the rails; but I am off them now, with a vengeance.”  What to say he knew not; at last—­

“It is just like your generosity, sir; you have been a brother to my father; and now—­”

“And now I’ll be a father to you!  Old Mark does nothing by halves.”