"That as you seemed to wish that things should be so, I had no ground
of objection to your engagement. I may as well tell you that the
proposals which he makes as regards settlements are of the most
liberal nature."
"Are they?" answered Ida indifferently. "Is Mr. Cossey coming here to
dinner?"
"Yes, I asked him. I thought that you would like to see him."
"Well, then, I wish you had not," she answered with animation,
"because there is nothing to eat except some cold beef. Really,
father, it is very thoughtless of you;" and she stamped her foot and
went off in a huff, leaving the Squire full of reflection.
"I wonder what it all means," he said to himself. "She can't care
about the man much or she would not make that fuss about his being
asked to dinner. Ida isn't the sort of woman to be caught by the
money, I should think. Well, I know nothing about it; it is no affair
of mine, and I can only take things as I find them."
And then he fell to reflecting that this marriage would be an
extraordinary stroke of luck for the family. Here they were at the
last gasp, mortgaged up the eyes, when suddenly fortune, in the shape
of an, on the whole, perfectly unobjectionable young man, appears,
takes up the mortgages, proposes settlements to the tune of hundreds
of thousands, and even offers to perpetuate the old family name in the
person of his son, should he have one.
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