Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/253

Rh you I have always said to myself, 'Augustus Musselboro, that is the woman for you, if you can only win her.' But then there was so much against me,—wasn't there?" She would not even take advantage of this by assuring him that there certainly always had been much against him, but allowed him to go on till he should run out all the length of his tether. "I mean, of course, in the way of money," he continued. "I hadn't much that I could call my own when your respected mamma first allowed me to become acquainted with you. But it's different now; and I think I may say that I'm all right in that respect. Poor Broughton's going in this way will make it a deal smoother to me; and I may say that I and your mamma will be all in all to each other now about money." Then he stopped.

"I don't quite understand what you mean by all this," said Clara.

"I mean that there isn't a more devoted fellow in all London than what I am to you." Then he was about to go down on one knee, but it occurred to him that it would not be convenient to kneel to a lady who would stand quite close to the door. "One and one, if they're put together well, will often make more than two, and so they shall with us," said Musselboro, who began to feel that it might be expedient to throw a little spirit into his words.

"If you have done," said Clara, "you may as well hear me for a minute. And I hope you will have sense to understand that I really mean what I say."

"I hope you will remember what are your mamma's wishes."

"Mamma's wishes have no influence whatsoever with me in such matters as this. Mamma's arrangements with you are for her own convenience, and I am not a party to them. I do not know anything about mamma's money, and I do not want to know. But under no possible circumstances will I consent to become your wife. Nothing that mamma could say or do would induce me even to think of it. I hope you will be man enough to take this for an answer, and say nothing more about it."

"But, Miss Clara"

"It's no good your Miss Claraing me, sir. What I have said you may be sure I mean. Good-morning, sir." Then she opened the door, and left him.

"By Jove, she is a Tartar," said Musselboro to himself, when he was alone. "They're both Tartars, but the younger is the worse." Then he began to speculate whether Fortune was not doing the best for him in so arranging that he might have the use of the Tartar-mother's