"I wonder if Mrs. Robertson will ask us to meet this new minister."
"I hope not. He will just be one of her 'divinity lads,' with his license to preach fresh in his pocket. They are all of them poor and sickeningly young. No man is fit to marry until he is forty years old, unless you want the discipline of training him."
"That is some of Mrs. Oliphant's talk, Isabel."
"Mrs. Oliphant knows what she is talking about, Christina."
"I wonder what you see in that American!"
"Everything I would like to be—if I dared."
"Why do you not call on her, then?"
"Mother does not approve either of her conversation, or her dress, Christina."
"Her dress is lovely. I wish I could dress like her."
"Christina Campbell! Her neck is shockingly uncovered, and her trains half fill a small room. Mother says her modesty begins at her feet—and stops there; but she is certainly very clever, and her husband waits on her like a lover. The men look at him as if they thought him a fool, but very likely he is the only wise man among them. What are you going to do this afternoon?"