Excerpt: ...should still continue in the same mind. But, Merton, I hope you will not think me too careful and anxious if I ask you whether it does not seem imprudent, when you have just given up your salary and are only beginning to work at something different, to marry a penniless girl? You have told me that you have no money, and that you cannot look to your relations for any assistance." "By no money I simply meant no fortune. Of course we could not get married without funds, and just now I have a couple of hundreds ...
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Excerpt: ...should still continue in the same mind. But, Merton, I hope you will not think me too careful and anxious if I ask you whether it does not seem imprudent, when you have just given up your salary and are only beginning to work at something different, to marry a penniless girl? You have told me that you have no money, and that you cannot look to your relations for any assistance." "By no money I simply meant no fortune. Of course we could not get married without funds, and just now I have a couple of hundreds standing to my credit in the bank. If we are careful, and content to begin married life in apartments, we need not spend any more than I am spending now by myself." He omitted to say that this money was all that was left of a legacy of 500 which had come to him from an aunt, and that he had been spending it pretty freely. His words only gave the impression that he knew the value of money, and was not one to act without careful consideration. They were still discussing this point when Fan came in, and after shaking hands with their visitor sat down in her hat and jacket. Merton, after expressing his regret that she had lost her protectress, proceeded to make some remarks about Miss Starbrow's eccentric temper. Nothing which that lady did, he said, surprised him in the least. Fan sat with eyes cast down; she looked pale and fatigued, and her face clouded at his words; then murmuring some excuse, she rose and went to her bedroom. "I must warn you, Merton," said Constance, "that Fan can't endure to hear anything said in dispraise of Miss Starbrow. I have discovered that it is the one subject about which she is capable of losing her temper and quarrelling with her best friend." "Is that so?" he returned, laughingly. "Then she must be as eccentric as Miss Starbrow herself. But what does the poor girl intend doing-she must do something to live, I suppose?" Constance told him all about Fan's projects. "Why do you smile?" she said. "You do not approve, ...
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