"I have come to speak to you without preface.

My life is not my own since I have beheld you clearly, Miss Everdene--I come to make you an offer of marriage." Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely neutral countenance, and all the motion she made was that of closing lips which had previously been a little parted.
"I am now forty-one years old," he went on.

"I may have been called a confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor.

I had never any views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I made any calculation on the subject since I have been older.

But we all change, and my change, in this matter, came with seeing you.