Had Sir Louis been a Hottentot, or an Esquimaux, the proposal could not have astonished him more.

The two persons were so totally of a different class, that the idea of the one falling in love with the other had never occurred to him.

"What would you think of Miss Mary Thorne ?" Sir Louis had asked; and the doctor, instead of answering him with ready and pleased alacrity, stood silent, thunderstruck with amazement.
"Well, wouldn't she be a good wife ?" said Sir Louis, rather in a tone of disgust at the evident disapproval shown at his choice.

"I thought you'd have been so delighted." "Mary Thorne!" ejaculated the doctor at last.

"Have you spoken to my niece about this, Sir Louis ?" "Well, I have and yet I haven't; I haven't, and yet in a manner I have." "I don't understand you," said the doctor.
"Why, you see, I haven't exactly popped to her yet; but I have been doing the civil; and if she's up to snuff, as I take her to be, she knows very well what I'm after by this time." Up to snuff! Mary Thorne, his Mary Thorne, up to snuff! To snuff too of such a very disagreeable description! "I think, Sir Louis, that you are in mistake about this.