"Most good-natured, you mean, Mrs. Wortle."
"I mean what I say, Lady Margaret. He has done what he has thought best, looking at all the circumstances. He thinks that they are very worthy people, and that they have been most cruelly ill-used. He has taken that into consideration. You call it good-nature. Others perhaps may call it—charity." The wife, though she at her heart deplored her husband's action in the matter, was not going to own to another lady that he had been imprudent.
"I am sure I hope they will," said Lady Margaret. Then as she was taking her leave, she made a suggestion. "Some of the boys will be taken away, I suppose. The Doctor probably expects that."
"I don't know what he expects," said Mrs. Wortle. "Some are always going, and when they go, others come in their places. As for me, I wish he would give the school up altogether."
"Perhaps he means it," said Lady Margaret; "otherwise, perhaps he wouldn't have been so good-natured." Then she took her departure.
When her visitor was gone Mrs. Wortle was very unhappy. She had been betrayed by her wrath into expressing that wish as to the giving up of the school. She knew well that the Doctor had no such intention. She herself had more than once suggested it in her timid way, but the Doctor had treated her suggestions as being worth nothing. He had his ideas about Mary, who was undoubtedly a very pretty girl. Mary might marry well, and £20,000 would probably assist her in doing so.
When he was told of Lady Margaret's hints, he said in his wrath that he would send young Momson away instantly if a word was said to him by the boy's mamma. "Of course," said he, "if the lad turns out a scapegrace, as is like enough, it will be because Mrs. Peacocke had two husbands. It is often a question to me whether the religion of the world is not more odious than its want of religion." To this terrible suggestion poor Mrs. Wortle did not dare to make any answer whatever.