"Now courteous as Reynard could be he was a little obstinate when his resolution had once been formed. She had been promised him by her eighteenth birthday at latest--sooner if she were in robust health. Her mother had fixed the time on her own judgment without a word of interference on his part. He had been hanging about foreign courts till he was weary. Betty was now as woman if she would ever be one and there was not in his mind the shadow of an excuse for putting him off longer. Therefore fortified as he was by the support of her mother he blandly but firmly told the Squire that he had been willing to waive his rights out of deference to her parents to any reasonable extent but must now in justice to himself and her insist on maintaining them. He therefore since she had not come to meet him should proceed to King's- Hintock in a few days to fetch her."