"Let us all agree to settle down contentedly behind the age in our provinciality; and, that we may keep so, let us cut the realists in fiction, and take up something they don't approve of. I vote that we devote the rest of the season to a good thorough course of Walter Scott!"
And so we did.
A LITTLE FOOL
"What, my dear Marian! And do you really and truly mean to say you thought of taking the girl without going to ask her character!"
"There are so many difficulties about it. You see, she lived last with Mrs. Donald Craighead for two years, and that would be quite enough for a character. They all went abroad in a great hurry on account of Mr. Craighead's health, and Mrs. Craighead promised to give her one, but forgot it, and she couldn't bear to bother them when they were all in such trouble. I know myself that all that about them is true."
"So do I; but that does not prove that she ever lived with them. Cannot she refer to any of the family?"