Now, Tom couldn’t work, and after a little Peterkin’s gift did not seem so very humiliating to him, although he could not bring himself to tell his mother of it when he announced his engagement to her, which he did bluntly and with nothing apologetic in his manner or speech.

’I am going to marry Ann Eliza Peterkin some time during the holidays, and start at once for Europe,’ he said, and then brought some water and dashed it in her face, for she immediately went into hysterics and declared herself dying.

When she grew calm, Tom swore a little, and talked a good deal, and told her about the million, which he said was not to be sneezed at, and told her what Colvin had said to him, and asked what the old Harry he was to do if he didn’t marry Ann Eliza, and told her of the proposed party, asking her to save him from it if she could.

When she found she could not help herself, Dolly rose to the situation, and said she would see her daughter-in-law elect, whom Tom was to bring to her, as she could not think of calling at Le Bateau in her present state of affliction.  So Ann Eliza came over in the coat-of-arms carriage, and her mother came with her.  But her Dolly declined to see.  She could not endure everything, she said to Tom, and was only equal to Ann Eliza, whom she met with a bow and the tips of her fingers, without rising from her chair.  Still, as the representative of a million, Ann Eliza was entitled to some consideration, and Dolly motioned her to a seat beside her, and, with her black-bordered handkerchief to her eyes, said to her: 

’Tom tells me you are going to marry him, and I trust you will try to make him happy.  He is a most estimable young man now, and if he should develop any bad habits, I shall think it owing to some new and bad influence brought to bear upon him.’

‘Yes’m,’ Ann Eliza answered, timidly; and the great lady went on to talk of family, and blood, and position, as something for which money could not make amends, and to impress upon her a sense of the great honor it was to be a member of the Tracy family.

Then she spoke of the wedding party, which she trusted Ann Eliza would prevent, as nothing could be in worse taste when they were in such affliction, adding that neither herself nor Mr. Tracy could think of being present.

‘Be married quietly, without any display, if you wish to please me,’ she said; and with a wave of her cobweb handkerchief she signified that the conference was ended.

‘Well, Annie, how did you and my lady hit it?’ Tom asked, meeting Ann Eliza in the hall as she came out, flushed and hot from the interview.

‘We didn’t hit it at all,’ Ann Eliza replied, with a sound of tears in her voice, and a gleam in her eye which Tom had never seen before.  ’She just talked as if I were dirt, and that you were only marrying me for money.  She don’t like me and I don’t like her, there!’ and the indignant little girl began to cry.