Now he began to wonder if this would be enough.
Hints were dropped by both the Holts regarding Cherry's approaching marriage with Jacob Dyson.

Mistress Susan openly regretted her absence from home as hindering that ceremony; and although Martin Holt spoke with more reticence, it was plain he was still cherishing the hope of the match when his wilful youngest should be a little older.
It might be that Cherry's absence at this time was fortunate rather than the reverse.

Cuthbert, at any rate, was relieved from the necessity for immediate action; and when he had spoken a little of himself, his kinsfolk, and the visits he had paid during his wanderings in the forest (keeping the real object of those wanderings quite out of the talk), he turned his conversation to other matters, and asked what was passing in London, and what was chiefly stirring men's minds.
"Marry it is the opening of Parliament that is the chiefest thing," said Martin Holt.

"It is said in the city that his Majesty loves not his good Parliament; and truly it looks like it, since he has put off its opening so many a time.

First it was to have been last February, then not till the third of this present month.