Now, take my word for it, when one man offers marriage, and the other does not, there is always a good chance of the girl saying this one is in earnest, and the other is not. We don't expect self-denial in a man; we don't believe in it. We see you seizing upon everything else you care for; and, if you don't seize on us, it wounds our vanity, the strongest passion we have. Consider, Uxmoor has title, wealth, everything to bestow with the wedding-ring. If he offers all that, and you don't offer all you have, how much more generous he looks to her than you do!""In short, you think she will doubt my affection, if I don't ask her to share my poverty.""If you don't, and a rich man asks her to share his all, I'm sure she will. And so should I. Words are only words.""You torture me. I'd rather die than lose her.""Then live and win her. I've told you the way.""I will scrape an income together, and ask her.""Upon your honor?"
"Upon my soul."
"Then, in my opinion, you will have her in spite of Lord Uxmoor."Hot from this, Edward Severne sat down and wrote a moving letter to a certain cousin of his in Huntingdonshire.
"MY DEAR COUSIN--I have often heard you say you were under obligations to my father, and had a regard for me. Indeed, you have shown the latter by letting the interest on my mortgage run out many years and not foreclosing. Having no other friend, I now write to you, and throw myself on your pity. I have formed a deep attachment to a young lady of infinite beauty and virtue. She is above me in everything, especially in fortune.
Yet she deigns to love me. I can't ask her hand as a pauper; and by my own folly, now deeply repented, I am little more. Now, all depends on you--my happiness, my respectability. Sooner or later, I shall be able to repay you all. For God's sake come to the assistance of your affectionate cousin, EDWARD SEVERNE.""The brother, a man of immense estates, is an old friend, and warmly attached to me. If I could only, through your temporary assistance or connivance, present my estate as clear, all would be well, and I could repay you afterward."To this letter he received an immediate reply: