Please let me have a few lines of answer by the bearer
to let me know whether or not my suit is accepted. If you accept me
I will at once come and talk the matter over with Mr. and Mrs. Allaby,
whom I shall hope one day to be allowed to call father and mother.
"I ought to warn you that in the event of your consenting to be my
wife it may be years before our union can be consummated, for I cannot
marry till a college living is offered me. If, therefore, you see
fit to reject me, I shall be grieved rather than surprised.- Ever most
devotedly yours,
"THEOBALD PONTIFEX."
And this was all that his public school and University education had
been able to do for Theobald! Nevertheless for his own part he thought
his letter rather a good one, and congratulated himself in
particular upon his cleverness in inventing the story of a previous
attachment, behind which he intended to shelter himself if Christina
should complain of any lack of fervour in his behaviour to her.
I need not give Christina's answer, which of course was to accept.
Much as Theobald feared old Mr. Allaby I do not think he would have
wrought up his courage to the point of actually proposing but for
the fact of the engagement being necessarily a long one, during
which a dozen things might turn up to break it off.
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