"But when I have once got into my scarlet coat I can be very proud of it, and when I am once seated in my divan I shall find it of all postures the easiest. Do you understand me?"
"I think so."
"Not a shade of any prejudice shall be left to darken my mind. There shall be no feeling but that you are in truth his chosen wife. After all neither can country, nor race, nor rank, nor wealth, make a good woman. Education can do much. But nature must have done much also."
"Do not expect too much of me."
"I will so expect that all shall be taken for the best. You know, I think, that I have liked you since I first saw you."
"I know that you have always been good to me."
"I have liked you from the first. That you are lovely perhaps is no merit; though, to speak the truth, I am well pleased that Silverbridge should have found so much beauty."
"That is all a matter of taste, I suppose," she said, laughing.
"But there is much that a young woman may do for herself which I think you have done. A silly girl, though she had been a second Helen, would hardly have satisfied me."
"Or perhaps him," said Isabel.