"Why, haven't I been courting you ever since I wore roundabouts, and hasn't everybody been expecting us to be married every week within the last two years.

Fie, Em, it's anything but abrupt." Emily blushed still deeper, and looked out of the window, down the street and up the street, but did not find anything in the prospect at either side that at all assisted her to come to a decision, so she only became more confused and stared the harder; at last she ventured to suggest that day two months.
"This day two months--outrageous!" said Charlie.

"Come here, dear old Ess, and help me to convince this deluded girl of the preposterous manner in which she is conducting herself." "I must join her side if you _will_ bring me into the discussion.

I think she is right, Charlie--there is so much to be done: the house to procure and furnish, and numberless other things that you hasty and absurd men know nothing about." By dint of strong persuasion from Charlie, Emily finally consented to abate two weeks of the time, and they decided that a family council should be held that evening at Mrs.Ellis's, when the whole arrangements should be definitely settled.
A note was accordingly despatched by Esther to her mother--that she, accompanied by Emily and the children, would come to them early in the afternoon, and that the gentlemen would join them in the evening at tea-time.

Caddy was, of course, completely upset by the intelligence; for, notwithstanding that she and the maid-of-all-work lived in an almost perpetual state of house-cleaning, nothing appeared to her to be in order, and worse than all, there was nothing to eat.
"Nothing to eat!" exclaimed Mrs.Ellis.