"I will be your wife, since you and my father have settled that it must be so; but I can promise no more than that.

I will be dutiful and submissive to you as a wife, you may be sure--only----" Mr.Whitelaw smiled a very significant smile, which implied that it would be his care to insure his wife's obedience, and that he was troubled by no doubts upon that head.
The bailiff broke-in abruptly at this juncture.
"Lord bless the girl, what need is there of all this talk about what she will be and what she won't be?
She'll be as good a wife as any woman in England, I'll stake my life upon that.

She's been a good daughter, as all the world knows, and a good daughter is bound to make a good wife.

Say no more about it, Nell.

Stephen Whitelaw knows he'll make no bad bargain in marrying you." The farmer received this remark with a loud sniff, expressive of offended dignity.
"Very likely not, William Carley," he said; "but it isn't every man that can make your daughter mistress of such a place as Wyncomb; and such men as could do it would look for money with a wife, however young and pretty she might be.