"You ask me a question as though you were putting a pistol to my ear." "I'm sorry the question was so unpleasant." "I didn't say that it was unpleasant; but you asked it so suddenly! The truth is, I didn't expect you to speak at all just then.

I suppose I was thinking of something." "But if it be not unpleasant,--when are you to be married ?" "I do not know.

It is not fixed." "But about when, I mean?
This summer ?" "Certainly not this summer, for the summer will be over when we reach home." "This winter?
Next spring?
Next year ?--or in ten years' time ?" "Before the expiration of the ten years, I suppose.

Anything more exact than that I can't say." "I suppose you like it ?" he then said.
"What, being married?
You see I've never tried yet." "The idea of it,--the anticipation, You look forward with satisfaction to the kind of life you will lead at Nethercoats?
Don't suppose I am saying anything against it, for I have no conception what sort of a place Nethercoats is.

On the whole I don't know that there is any kind of life better than that of an English country gentleman in his own place;--that is, if he can keep it up, and not live as the old squire does, in a state of chronic poverty." "Mr Grey's place doesn't entitle him to be called a country gentleman." "But you like the prospect of it ?" "Oh, George, how you do cross-question one! Of course I like it, or I shouldn't have accepted it." "That does not follow.