She is an excellent
girl. She is very pretty, too, and, I am sorry to say, she seems to have
fallen in love--really and positively in love with Hiram. _He_, the
calculating wretch, has canvassed the whole matter, has made careful
investigations of the condition of the house of Allwise, Tenant & Co.,
and has satisfied himself that it is firm as a rock, and that Mr. Tenant
is no doubt worth the pretty sum of three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, or such a matter.
Emma is an only child!
Oh, Hiram, how dare you utter those vows of love and constancy and
everlasting regard and affection, coming, as you do, with your fingers
fresh from turning the leaves at the register's office, where,
forgetting your dinner, you have spent the entire afternoon in
satisfying yourself about the real estate held by 'Amos Tenant?' Had the
record under your precious investigation not been satisfactory, you
would not have spent five minutes thereafter in the society of Emma
Tenant.
Yet your conscience does not reproach you. No, not one bit. Positively
you are not aware of anything reprehensible or even indelicate in what
you are about. Thinking of the matter, as you carefully scan the books
of record, you regard it precisely as you would any other investigation.
To you it is essential that the girl you are to marry should have money.
If she has, you will love her (for it is your _duty_ to love your wife);
if she has not, you cannot love her, and of course (duty again) you
cannot wed her.
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