"Yes, she thinks of him. That is only natural, you know."
"It would be unnatural that she should think of him much."
"I do not see that," said the mother, keen to defend her daughter from what might seem to be an implied reproach. "George Hotspur is a man who will make himself thought of wherever he goes. He is clever, and very amusing;—there is no denying that. And then he has the Hotspur look all over."
"I wish he had never set his foot within the house," said the father.
"My dear, there is no such danger as you think," said Lady Elizabeth. "Emily is not a girl prone to fall in love at a moment's notice because a man is good-looking and amusing;—and certainly not with the conviction which she must have that her doing so would greatly grieve you." Sir Harry believed in his daughter, and said no more; but he thoroughly wished that Lord Alfred's wedding-day was fixed.
"Mamma," said Emily, on the following day, "won't Lord Alfred be very dull?"
"I hope not, my dear."
"What is he to do, with nobody else here to amuse him?"
"The Crutchleys are coming on the 27th."
Now Mr. and Mrs. Crutchley were, as Emily thought, very ordinary people, and quite unlikely to afford amusement to Lord Alfred. Mr. Crutchley was an old gentleman of county standing, and with property in the county, living in a large dull red house in Penrith, of whom Sir Harry thought a good deal, because he was a gentleman who happened to have had great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. But he was quite as old as Sir Harry, and Mrs. Crutchley was a great deal older than Lady Elizabeth.