‘But you have made anything but a fool of yourself since,’ she replied triumphantly; ’you have gone out into the world like a man, and have made your fortune, and have so returned that everybody is proud of you.  Now you can take a wife to yourself and settle down, and be a happy goodman.’

It was exactly his view of life;—­only there was a difference about the wife to be taken.  He certainly had never said a word to his cousin which could justify this attack upon him.  The girl had been brought to him in a cupboard, and he had been told that he was to marry her!  And that when he had been young and drowned with difficulties.  How is a man ever to escape if he must submit under such circumstances as these?  ’My dear Aunt Polly, I had better tell you at once that I cannot marry my cousin Julia.’  Those were the words which he did speak, and as he spoke there was a look about his eyes and his mouth which ought to have made her know that there was no hope.

‘And why not?  John Caldigate, is this you that I hear?’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because you promised it.’

‘I never did, Aunt Polly.’

‘And because she loves you.’

’Even if it were so, am I to be bound by that?  But, indeed, indeed, I never even suggested it,—­never thought of it.  I am very fond of my cousin, very fond of all my cousins.  But marriage is a different thing.  I am inclined to think that cousins had better not marry.’

’You should have said that before.  But it is nonsense.  Cousins marry every day.  There is nothing about it either in the Bible or the Prayer-book.  She will die.’

Aunt Polly said this in a tone of voice which made it a matter of regret that she should not have been educated for Drury Lane.  But as she said it, he could not avoid thinking of Julia’s large ankles, and red cheeks, and of the new green hat and feather.  A girl with large ankles is, one may suppose, as liable to die for love as though she were as fine about her feet as a thorough-bred filly; and there is surely no reason why a true heart and a pair of cherry cheeks should not go together.  But our imagination has created ideas in such matters so fixed, that it is useless to contend against them.  In our endeavours to produce effects, these ideas should be remembered and obeyed.  ’I hope not on that account,’ said Caldigate, and as he uttered the words some slightest suspicion of a smile crossed his face.

Then Aunt Polly blazed forth in wrath.  ’And at such a moment as this you can laugh!’

‘Indeed, I did not laugh;—­I am very far from laughing, Aunt Polly.’

’Because I am anxious for my child, my child whom you have deceived, you make yourself merry with me!’

’I am not merry.  I am miserably unhappy because of all this.  But I cannot admit that I have deceived my cousin.  All that was settled, I thought, when I went away.  But coming back at the end of four years, of four such long years, with very different ideas of life——­’