Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/242

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234
THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.

above all, he determined to go himself the following morning with a book that he had promised to lend Captain Hopkinson. He really rather liked that family, and he could imagine that girls brought up as they had been, might make excellent wives to men who could afford to marry. He should not be surprised if Harcourt married one and Grenville the other.

The next morning he sallied forth with a very tiresome book on storms and currents in his pocket, and though Captain Hopkinson could not remember having expressed any wish to borrow it, he believed Mr. Greydon's assertion that he had—received him cordially, asked him to stay to luncheon, and after a visit that lasted two hours, the single man walked home to the cheap lodgings, not so certain as he had been that Janet should marry Grenville, Harcourt was quite welcome to Rose. He fairly owned to himself that he was in love, and being of a hopeful turn of mind, began to think that somebody—he did not know who—might, some day—he