'She sulked for four and twenty hours, and then wrote me a long epistle; wherein she demonstrated (not by geometrical reasonings) that I was utterly lost to all sense of duty; and towards you. "She had, indeed, given her consent to our union" (she said) "when you should have made yourself a name and a situation in life [entire phrase underscored twice]; but only because I asked it, with tears, upon my bended knees, at a time, too, when my life seemed precarious!!"'