That was the
special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our
engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of
these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his
conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I
refused to be guided by his advice."
"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"
"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long
engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so
thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind;
every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think
more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to
talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's
favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on,
you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear
love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three
different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the
_Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost
my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_
funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the
_Scientific Saturday_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a
blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and
wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete
poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a
man with an unpronounceable Greek name.
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