Explore "Materfamilias" by Ada Cambridge on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A boy who is not yet twenty-four, and who has nothing beyond his salary as a clerk in a shipping office, and whose young lady is a pauper, can get engaged if he likes; but he cannot get married. I pointed this out to Harry as soon as he was well enough to be reasoned with. I said to him, "You know, my dearest, that there's nothing in the world I would not do to make you happy, but it would not be making you happy to let you think for a moment of such madness." It appeared, from Tom's account, that the child had been thinking of it -- doubtless at Emily's instigation. "I might as well encourage you to cut your throat. Far better, indeed."
"Better?" he echoed, lifting his eyebrows, and smiling in that queer way of his.