"Remain here for the next month, and—and worry her; let Mr. Anderson have his chance with her. When she finds that everything will smile with her if she accepts him, and that her life will be made a burden to her if she still sticks to her Harry Annesley, she'll come round, if she be like other girls. Of course a girl can't be made to marry a man, but there are ways and means." By this Lady Mountjoy meant that the utmost cruelty should be used which would be compatible with a good breakfast, dinner, and bedroom. Now, Mrs. Mountjoy knew herself to be incapable of this, and knew also, or thought that she knew, that it would not be efficacious.
"You stay here,—up to Christmas, if you like it," said Sir Magnus to his sister-in-law. "She can't but see Anderson every day, and that goes a long way. She, of course, puts on a resolute air as well as she can. They all know how to do that. Do you be resolute in return. The deuce is in it if we can't have our way with her among us. When you talk of ill usage nobody wants you to put her in chains. There are different ways of killing a cat. You get friends to write to you from England about young Annesley, and I'll do the same. The truth, of course, I mean."
"Nothing can be worse than the truth," said Mrs. Mountjoy, shaking her head, sorrowfully.
"Just so," said Sir Magnus, who was not at all sorrowful to hear so bad an account of the favored suitor. "Then we'll read her the letters. She can't help hearing them. Just the true facts, you know. That's fair; nobody can call that cruel. And then, when she breaks down and comes to our call, we'll all be as soft as mother's milk to her. I shall see her going about the boulevards with a pair of ponies yet." Mrs. Mountjoy felt that when Sir Magnus spoke of Florence coming to his call he did not know her daughter. But she had nothing better to do than to obey Sir Magnus. Therefore she resolved to stay at Brussels another period of six weeks and told Florence that she had so resolved. Just at present Brussels and Cheltenham would be all the same to Florence.
"It will be a dreadful bore having them so long," said poor Lady Mountjoy, piteously, to her husband. For in the presence of Sir Magnus she was by no means the valiant woman that she was with some of her friends.
"You find everything a bore. What's the trouble?"
"What am I to do with them?"
"Take 'em about in the carriage. Lord bless my soul! what have you got a carriage for?"
"Then, with Miss Abbott, there's never room for any one else."
"Leave Miss Abbott at home, then. What's the good of talking to me about Miss Abbott? I suppose it doesn't matter to you whom my brother's daughter marries?" Lady Mountjoy did not think that it did matter much; but she declared that she had already evinced the most tender solicitude. "Then stick to it. The girl doesn't want to go out every day. Leave her alone, where Anderson can get at her."