Page:Authors daughter v1.djvu/194

190 if you had proved yourself good and I had won you to your father and mother. Now you'll have to speak to my father, and I doubt you will have some rouble here, for he is set on my marrying McCallum, and to me he is he most wearisome company I ever was in. So that I'll never do, George; whatever my father may wish or may command I can obey him so far as to give you up, but not to marry another man."

"You'll not give me up, Jessie," said George earnestly, for he now felt as much like a lover as a girl could wish.

"Well, I think not," said Jessie. "Marriage is a thing that so much concerns the two persons that enter into it that I scarce see what even parents have to do with it, except in advising or delaying or such like. But I must mind Strawberry; she's surprised at being bailed up and not milked."

"I'm willing enough to wait till I have got further forward to satisfy your father. I think my own father would help me a bit if he knew what a good sensible girl I have won in the wilds of Australia. Perhaps if I show my letters and tell him my father's circumstances Mr. Lindsay would be more favourable."

"If you win Allan's good will you may make pretty sure of my father's, and I don't think