“Oh, bother Miss Tickle!  Miss Tickle is very well.”

“Exactly so.  Miss Tickle is very well; a most estimable person.”

“We’ll leave her alone just at present.”

“Yes, certainly.  We had better leave her alone in our present conversation.  Not but what I have a strong regard for her.”  Mr. Prosper had surely not thought of the opening he might be giving as to a future career for Miss Tickle by such an assertion.

“So have I, for the matter of that, but we’ll drop her just now.”  Then she paused, but he paused also.  “You have come over to Buntingford to-day probably in order that you might congratulate them at the brewery on the marriage with one of your family.”  Then Mr. Prosper frowned, but she did not care for his frowning.  “It will not be a bad match for the young lady, as Joshua is fairly steady, and the brewery is worth money.”

“I could have wished him a better brother-in-law,” said the lover, who was taken away from the consideration of his love by the allusion to the Annesleys.  He had thought of all that, and in the dearth of fitting objects of affection had resolved to endure the drawback of the connection.  But it had for a while weighed very seriously with him, so that had the twenty-five thousand pounds been twenty thousand pounds, he might have taken himself to Miss Puffle, who lived near Saffron Walden and who would own Snickham Manor when her father died.  The property was said to be involved, and Miss Puffle was certainly forty-eight.  As an heir was the great desideratum, he had resolved that Matilda Thoroughbung should be the lady, in spite of the evils attending the new connection.  He did feel that in throwing over Harry he would have to abandon all the Annesleys, and to draw a line between himself with Miss Thoroughbung and the whole family of the Thoroughbungs generally.

“You mustn’t be too bitter against poor Molly,” said Miss Thoroughbung.

Mr. Prosper did not like to be called bitter, and, in spite of the importance of the occasion, could not but show that he did not like it.  “I don’t think that we need talk about it.”

“Oh dear no.  Kate and Miss Tickle need neither of them be talked about.”  Mr. Prosper disliked all familiarity, and especially that of being laughed at, but Miss Thoroughbung did laugh.  So he drew himself up, and dangled his glove more slowly than before.  “Then you were not going on to congratulate them at the brewery?”

“Certainly not.”

“I did not know.”

“My purpose carries me no farther than Marmaduke Lodge.  I have no desire to see any one to-day besides Miss Thoroughbung.”

“That is a compliment.”

Then his memory suddenly brought back to him one of his composed sentences.  “In beholding Miss Thoroughbung I behold her on whom I hope I may depend for all the future happiness of my life.”  He did feel that it had come in the right place.  It had been intended to be said immediately after her acceptance of him.  But it did very well where it was.  It expressed, as he assured himself, the feelings of his heart, and must draw from her some declaration of hers.