‘I don’t hold with Popery, sir, but it served him right.’
‘That is all the queerness then!’
‘That and general discontentedness.’
‘Girls will be girls,’ said Merton; ‘she wants society.’
‘Want must be her master then,’ said Mrs. Nicholson stolidly.
‘But about the man of her choice, have you anything against him?’
‘No, but nothing for him: I never even saw him.’
‘Then where did Miss Monypenny make his acquaintance?’
‘Well, like a fool, I let her go to pass Christmas with some distant cousins of my own, who should have known better. They stupidly took her to a dance, at Tutbury, and there she met him: just that once.’
‘And they became engaged on so short an acquaintance?’