"I think it much better that men in Parliament should be unmarried," said the Duchess.
"But I am going to be married," said he.
"Going to be married, are you ?" "I have no right to say so, because the lady's father has rejected me." Then he told her the whole story, and so told it as to secure her entire sympathy.

In telling it he never said that he was a rich man, he never boasted that that search after wealth of which he had spoken, had been successful; but he gave her to understand that there was no objection to him at all on the score of money.

"You may have heard of the family," he said.
"I have heard of the Whartons of course, and know that there is a baronet,--but I know nothing more of them.

He is not a man of large property, I think." "My Miss Wharton,--the one I would fain call mine,--is the daughter of a London barrister.

He, I believe, is rich." "Then she will be an heiress." "I suppose so;--but that consideration has had no weight with me.