“Yes, Miss Clavering, I must go on now; but not on that account would I press you to give me an answer to-day.  I have learned to love you, and, if you can love me in return, I will take you by the hand, and you shall be my wife.  I have found that in you which I have been unable not to love—­not to covet that I may bind it to myself as my own forever.  Will you think of this, and give me an answer when you have considered it fully?” He had not spoken altogether amiss, and Fanny, though she was very angry with him, was conscious of this.  The time he had chosen might not be considered suitable for a declaration of love, nor the place; but, having chosen them, he had, perhaps, made the best of them.  There had been no hesitation in his voice, and his words had been perfectly audible.

“Oh, Mr. Saul, of course I can assure you at once,” said Fanny.  “There need not be any consideration.  I really have never thought—­” Fanny, who knew her own mind on the matter thoroughly, was hardly able to express herself plainly and without incivility.  As soon as that phrase “of course” had passed her lips, she felt that it should not have been spoken.  There was no need that she should insult him by telling him that such a proposition from him could have but one answer.

“No, Miss Clavering; I know you have never thought of it, and therefore it would be well that you should take time.  I have not been able to make manifest to you by little signs, as men do who are less awkward, all the love that I have felt for you.  Indeed, could I have done so, I should still have hesitated till I had thoroughly resolved that I might be better with a wife than without one, and had resolved also, as far as that might be possible for me, that you also would be better with a husband.”

“Mr. Saul, really that should be for me to think of.”

“And for me also.  Can any man offer to marry a woman—­to bind a woman for life to certain duties, and to so close an obligation, without thinking whether such bonds would be good for her as well as for himself?  Of course, you must think for yourself—­and so have I thought for you.  You should think for yourself, and you should think also for me.”

Fanny was quite aware that, as regarded herself, the matter was one which required no more thinking.  Mr. Saul was not a man with whom she could bring herself to be in love.  She had her own ideas as to what was loveable in men, and the eager curate, splashing through the rain by her side, by no means came up to her standard of excellence.  She was unconsciously aware that he had altogether mistaken her character, and given her credit for more abnegation of the world than she pretended to possess, or was desirous of possessing.  Fanny Clavering was in no hurry to get married.  I do not know that she had even made up her mind that marriage would be a good thing for her; but she bad an untroubled conviction that, if she did marry, her husband should have a house and