"I don't suppose that will much signify. I shall just go to the church."

"Like a servant-maid?" asked Gertrude.

"Yes -- like a servant-maid," said Lucy. "That is to say, a servant-maid would, I suppose, simply walk in and be married; and I shall do the same."

"I think you had better tell your uncle," said Aunt Emmeline. "But I am sure I did not mean that you were to go away like this. It will be your own doing, and I cannot help it if you will do it."

Then Lucy did tell her uncle. "And you mean to live upon three hundred a year!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't know what you are talking about."

"He is as ignorant as a babe unborn -- I mean about that kind of thing. I don't doubt he can make things in stone as well as anybody."

"Marble is stone, I suppose -- or in iron."

"Very well. There is iron in bronze, I suppose. But he doesn't know what a wife will cost. Has he bought any furniture?"