Yes I'm a Baronet

How eager Lady Carbury was that her son should at once go in form to Marie's father and make his proposition may be easily understood. 'My dear Felix,' she said, standing over his bedside a little before noon, 'pray don't put it off; you don't know how many slips there may be between the cup and the lip.'

'It's everything to get him in a good humour,' pleaded Sir Felix.

'But the young lady will feel that she is ill-used.'

'There's no fear of that; she's all right. What am I to say to him about money? That's the question.'

'I shouldn't think of dictating anything, Felix.'

'Nidderdale, when he was on before, stipulated for a certain sum down; or his father did for him. So much cash was to be paid over before the ceremony, and it only went off because Nidderdale wanted the money to do what he liked with.'

'You wouldn't mind having it settled?'

'No;--I'd consent to that on condition that the money was paid down, and the income insured to me,--say £7,000 or £8,000 a year. I wouldn't do it for less, mother; it wouldn't be worth while.'

'But you have nothing left of your own.'

'I've got a throat that I can cut, and brains that I can blow out,' said the son, using an argument which he conceived might be efficacious with his mother; though, had she known him, she might have been sure that no man lived less likely to cut his own throat or blow out his own brains.