“Yes.  But I mean one that should devote himself to you alone.  Philip has Margaret; and besides, he is gone now, and so is Mr. Cornelius.  And Tom will be finding a wife some day, and your parents cannot live for ever, and your friends will be married one after another.”

“Poor me!” says she, with a sigh of comic wofulness.  “How helpless and alone you make me feel!”

“Not so entirely alone, neither!  There’s one I didn’t mention.”

“And that one, too, I suppose, will be running off some day.”

“No.  He, like Tom, will be seeking a wife some day; perhaps sooner than Tom; perhaps very soon indeed; perhaps this very minute.”

“Oh, Bert!—­What nonsense!  Don’t look at me so, here in the street—­people will take notice.”

“What do I care for people?  Let the fellows all see, and envy me, if you’ll give me what I ask.  What say you, dearest?  Speak; tell me!  Nay, if you won’t, I’ll make you blush all the more—­I love you, I love you, I love you!  Now will you speak?”

“Oh, Bert, dear, at least wait till we are home!”

“If you’ll promise to say yes then.”

“Very well—­if ’twill please you.”

“Nay, it must be to please yourself too.  You do love me a little, don’t you?”

“Why, of course I do; and you must have known it all the time!”

But, alas, her father’s “yes” was not so easily to be won.  I broached the matter to him that very evening (Fanny and I meanwhile having come to a fuller understanding in the seclusion of the garden); but he shook his head, and regarded me coldly.

“No, sir,” said he.  “For, however much you are to be esteemed as a young gentleman of honour and candour and fine promise, ’tis for me to consider you rather as an adherent of a government that has persecuted my country, and now makes war upon it.  The day may come when you will find a more congenial home nearer the crown you have already expressed your desire to fight for.  And then, if Fanny were your wife, you would carry her off to make an Englishwoman of her, as my first daughter would have been carried by her husband, upon different motives, but for this war.  Perhaps ’twere better she could have gone,” he added, with a sigh, for Margaret had been his favourite child; “my loss of her could scarce have been more complete than it is.  But ’tis not so with Fanny.”

“But, sir, I am not to take it that you refuse me, definitely, finally?—­I beg—­”

“Nay, sir, I only say that we must wait.  Let us see what time shall bring to pass.  I believe that you will not—­and I am sure that Fanny will not—­endeavour any act without my consent, or against my wish.  Nay, I don’t bid you despair, neither.  Time shall determine.”

I was not so confident that I would not endeavour any act without his consent; but I shared his certainty that Fanny would not.  And so, in despondency, I took the news to her.

“Well,” says she, with a sigh.  “We must wait, that’s all.”