“I should not care much for your love if that was how it came,” said young John.
“That would only show you did not understand,” said Sara, mildly. “To like people for a good reason, is not that better than liking them merely because you can’t help it? If there was any body that it suited papa, for instance, to make me marry, don’t you think I would be very foolish if I could not make myself fond of him? and ungrateful too?”
“Would you really do as much for me, my darling?” said Mr. Brownlow, looking up at her with a glimmer of weakness in his eyes; “but I hope I shall never require to put you to the test.”
“Why not, papa?” said Sara, cheerfully. “I am sure it would be a much more sensible reason for being fond of any body that you wished it, than just my own fancy. I should do it, and I would never hesitate about it,” said the confident young woman; and the father, though he was a man of some experience, felt his heart melt and glow over this rash statement with a fond gratification, and really believed it, foolish as it was.
“And I shall drive down,” said Sara, “and look as fine as possible; though, of course, I would far rather have Meg out, and ride home with you in the afternoon. And it would do Meg a world of good,” she added, pathetically. “But you know if one goes in for pleasing one’s grandmamma, one ought to be content to please her in her own way. _She_ likes to see the carriage and the grays, and a great noise and fuss. If it is worth taking the trouble for at all, it is worth doing it in her own way.”
“_I_ walk, and she is always very glad to see me,” said John, in what must be allowed was an unpleasant manner.
“Ah! you are different,” said Sara, with a momentary bend of her graceful head. And, of course, he was very different. He was a mere man or boy--whichever you prefer--not in the least ornamental, nor of very much use to any body--whereas Sara--But it is not a difference that could be described or argued about; it was a thing which could be perceived with half an eye. When breakfast was over, the two gentlemen went off to Masterton to their business; for young John had gone into his father’s office, and was preparing to take up in his turn the hereditary profession. Indeed, it is not clear that Mr. Brownlow ever intended poor Jack to profit at all by his wealth, or the additional state and grandeur the family had taken upon itself. To his eyes, so far as it appeared, Sara alone was the centre of all this magnificence; whereas Jack was simply the heir and successor of the Brownlows, who had been time out of mind the solicitors of Masterton. For Jack, the brick house in the High Street waited with all its old stores; and the fairy accessories of their present existence, all the luxury and grace and beauty--the grays--the conservatories--the park--the place in the country--seemed a kind of natural appanage to the fair creature in whom the race of Brownlow had come to flower, the father could not tell how; for it seemed strange to think that he himself, who was but a homely individual, should have been the means of bringing any thing so fair and fine into the world. Probably Mr. Brownlow, when it came to making his will, would be strictly just to his two children; but in the mean time, in his thoughts, that was, no doubt, how things stood; and Jack accordingly was brought up as he himself had been, rather as the heir of the Brownlows’ business, their excellent connection and long-established practice, than as the heir of Brownlows--two very different things, as will be perceived.