“You are tired,” said Miss Southwood, sympathetically, “and that girl has forgotten as usual to put the claret to fire. But this bird is very well cooked, and the bread-crumbs are brown and crisp, just as you like them. Why was it he sent for you? something quite trifling, I suppose. I wonder how parents can reconcile themselves to the trouble they give.”
“It was not a trifle, it was about Lucy’s marriage,” said the other, “or rather about preventing Lucy’s marriage, I think. I am to have a finger in the pie.”
“_You!_ Old Mr. Trevor is very queer, I know; is he going to take up that odious French system, and arrange it without any reference to the girl? But surely, Maria, you would never countenance an iniquity like that?”
“Iniquity! are you sure it is an iniquity? In some points of view I approve of it greatly. Do you think I could not choose better husbands for the girls than they will ever choose for themselves? How is a girl to exercise any judgment in the matter? She takes the first man that comes, perhaps, or the first fool she thinks nice-looking, and what is there sacred in that?”
“I thought you were always the one to stand up for love,” said Miss Southwood. “I never pretend to know anything about it myself.”
“Oh, when there is _love_,” said Mrs. Stone, “that is another thing. But what do they know about love? It is fancy, it is not love; how should they know?”
“I am sure _I_ can’t tell,” answered the unmarried sister, very demurely, “don’t ask me to give any opinion; you are the one that ought to know; and I have always heard you say, and understood you to uphold--”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the other, impatiently; “when a thing has been said once, one is held to it forever, in this unintelligent way. You never consider how unlike one case is to another, or take the circumstances into account. Besides, all I said referred to a sentiment already formed. I would never tear two young people asunder that were fond of each other, because one was rich and the other poor; that is a thing I could never be guilty of. But this is a very different matter. To take care that a girl like Lucy Trevor does not make a foolish choice, or even,” said Mrs. Stone, with a certain solemnity and deliberateness of utterance, “to direct her thoughts to some one eminently suitable--”