I will work most nobly that I may deserve her!" "All this is mere rhapsody, Mr Lorton,"-- she said in her icy accents, throwing a shower of metaphorical cold water on my earnest enthusiasm.--"Do you seriously think for a moment that I would give my consent to my daughter's engagement to you in your present position ?" "I hoped so, Mrs Clyde," I replied, timidly.
I did not know what else to say.
"Then you hoped wrongly," she said.

"You are really _very_ young, Mr Lorton! I do not mean merely in years, but in knowledge of the world! You positively wish me to sacrifice all my daughter's prospects, and let her be bound to a wearisome engagement, on the mere chance of your being able at some distant period to marry her! Do I understand you aright?
I certainly gave you credit for possessing more good sense, Mr Lorton, or I should never have admitted you to my house." "O, Mrs Clyde," I said, "be considerate! Be merciful! Remember, that _you_ were young once." "I am considerate," she answered--"still, I must think of my daughter's welfare, before regarding the foolish wishes of a comparative stranger!" Throughout the interview, she invariably alluded to Min as "her daughter," never mentioning her name.
It seemed as if she wished to avoid even the idea of our intimacy, and to make me understand how great a gulf lay between us.
"But I love her so, Mrs Clyde!" I pleaded again, in one last effort.
"I love her dearly, and she loves me, I know.

Do not, oh! do not part us so cruelly!" "This is very foolish, Mr Lorton,"-- she replied, coldly;--"and there is not much use, I think, in our prolonging the conversation; for, none of your arguments would convince me to give my consent to any such hair- brained scheme.

Even if your offer had otherwise my approval, which it has not, I could not bear the idea of a long engagement for my daughter.
You yourself ought to be more generous than to wish to tie a girl down to an arrangement which would waste her best years, blight her life; and, probably, end in her being a sour, disappointed woman--as I have known hundreds of such cases to end!" "I do not wish to bind her," I said.

"I only want your provisional consent, Mrs Clyde.