“Any arrangements that you choose as to settlements or the like of that, could of course be made.” Mr. Prong when he began, or rather when he made up his mind to begin, had determined that he would use all his best power of language in pressing his suit; but the work had been so hard that his fine language had got itself lost in the struggle. I doubt whether this made much difference with Mrs. Prime; or it may be, that he had sustained the propriety of his words as long as such propriety was needful and salutary to his purpose. Had he spoken of the “like of that” at the opening of the negotiation, he might have shocked his hearer; but now she was too deeply engaged in solid serious considerations to care much for the words which were used. “A hundred and thirty from pew-rents,” she said to herself, as he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to look under her bonnet into her face.
“I think I have said it all now,” he continued. “If you will trust yourself into my keeping I will endeavour, with God’s assistance, to do my duty by you. I have said but little personally of myself or of my feelings, hoping that it might be unnecessary.”
“Oh, quite so,” said she.
“I have spoken rather of those duties which we should undertake together in sweet companionship, if you will consent to—to—to be Mrs. Prong, in short.” Then he waited for an answer.
As she sat in her widow’s weeds, there was not, to the eye, the promise in her of much sweet companionship. Her old crape bonnet had been lugged and battered about—not out of all shape, as hats and bonnets are sometimes battered by young ladies, in which guise, if the young ladies themselves be pretty, the battered hats and bonnets are often more becoming than ever they were in their proper shapes—but so as closely to fit her head, and almost hide her face. Her dress was so made, and so put on, as to give to her the appearance of almost greater age than her mother’s. She had studied to divest herself of all outward show of sweet companionship; but perhaps she was not the less, on that account, gratified to find that she had not altogether succeeded.
“I have done with the world, and all the world’s vanities and cares,” she said, shaking her head.
“No one can have done with the world as long as there is work in it for him or her to do. The monks and nuns tried that, and you know what they came to.”
“But I am a widow.”
“Yes, my friend; and have shown yourself, as such, very willing to do your part. But do you not know that you could be more active and more useful as a clergyman’s wife than you can be as a solitary woman?”
“But my heart is buried, Mr. Prong.”
“No; not so. While the body remains in this vale of tears, the heart must remain with it.” Mrs. Prime shook her head; but in an anatomical point of view, Mr. Prong was no doubt strictly correct. “Other hopes will arise—and perhaps, too, other cares, but they will be sources of gentle happiness.”
Mrs. Prime understood him as alluding to a small family, and again shook her head at the allusion.
“What I have said may probably have taken you by surprise.”
“Yes, it has, Mr. Prong;—very much.”
“And if so, it may be that you would wish time for consideration before you give me an answer.”
“Perhaps that will be best, Mr. Prong.”
“Let it be so. On what day shall we say? Will Friday suit you? If I come to you on Friday morning, perhaps Miss Pucker will be there.”
“Yes, she will.”
“And in the afternoon.”
“We shall be at the Dorcas meeting.”
“I don’t like to trouble you to come here again.”
Mrs. Prime herself felt that there was a difficulty. Hitherto she had entertained no objection to calling on Mr. Prong at his own house. His little sitting-room had been as holy ground to her—almost as part of the church, and she had taken herself there without scruple. But things had now been put on a different footing. It might be that that room would become her own peculiar property, but she could never again regard it in a simply clerical light. It had become as it were a bower of love, and she could not take her steps thither with the express object of assenting to the proposition made to her—or even with that of dissenting from it. “Perhaps,” said she, “you could call at ten on Saturday. Miss Pucker will be out marketing.” To this Mr. Prong agreed, and then Mrs. Prime got up and took her leave. How fearfully wicked would Rachel have been in her eyes, had Rachel made an appointment with a young man at some hour and some place in which she might be found alone! But then it is so easy to trust oneself, and so easy also to distrust others.
“Good morning,” said Mrs. Prime; and as she went she gave her hand as a matter of course to her lover.
“Goodbye,” said he; “and think well of this if you can do so. If you believe that you will be more useful as my wife than you can be in your present position—then—”
“You think it would be my duty to—”
“Well, I will leave that for you to decide. I merely wish to put the matter before you. But,
