I merely state the condition, but of course it's awkward: you're already bound.

Your father (who, I must say, honours me with considerable trust, seeing that he knows nothing about me) was good enough to suggest that your affection for this young fish-jowter was a transient fancy--" "Father--" began the girl, rather for the sake of hearing her own voice than because she knew what to say.
Farmer Tresidder groaned.

"Young man, where's your gumption?
You'm makin' a mess o't--an' I thought 'ee so very clever." "Really," pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyes from Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or his heart; his head, I think, on the whole.

So much hospitality, paternal solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one scheme." He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with his finger-tips on the cloth.

His mouth was pursed up as if silently whistling an air.