Anyhow, she went, and in half an hour they blandly informed Aunt Hannah that they were going to be married to-day.
"Aunt Hannah said she tried to stop that, and get them to put it off till October (the original date, you know), but Bertram was obdurate.
And when he declared he'd marry her the next day if it wasn't for the new license law, Aunt Hannah said she gave up for fear he'd get a special dispensation, or go to the Governor or the President, or do some other dreadful thing.

(What a funny old soul Aunt Hannah is!) Bertram told _me_ that he should never feel safe till Billy was really his; that she'd read something, or hear something, or think something, or get a letter from me (as if anything _I_ could say would do any good-or harm!), and so break the engagement again.
"Well, she's his now, so I suppose he's satisfied; though, for my part, I haven't changed my mind at all.

I still say that they are not one bit suited to each other, and that matrimony will simply ruin his career.
Bertram never has loved and never will love any girl long--except to paint.

But if he simply _would_ get married, why couldn't he have taken a nice, sensible domestic girl that would have kept him fed and mended?
"Not but that I'm very fond of Billy, as you know, dear; but imagine Billy as a wife--worse yet, a mother! Billy's a dear girl, but she knows about as much of real life and its problems as--as our little Kate.

A more impulsive, irresponsible, regardless-of-consequences young woman I never saw.