“But she couldn’t have taken your sister away, unless she had wished to go.”
“Of course she wished it; but a silly creature like her can’t be let to do all she wishes. She wishes to get a husband, and doesn’t care what sort of a one she gets; but you don’t suppose an old maid—forty years old, who has always been too stupid and foolish ever to be seen or spoken to, should be allowed to throw away four hundred a-year, on the first robber that tries to cheat her? You don’t mean to say there isn’t a law to prevent that?”
“I don’t know how you’ll prevent it, Mr Lynch. She’s her own mistress.”
“What the d––––l! Do you mean to say there’s nothing to prevent an idiot like that from marrying?”
“If she was an idiot! But I think you’ll find your sister has sense enough to marry whom she pleases.”
“I tell you she is an idiot; not raving, mind; but everybody knows she was never fit to manage anything.”
“Who’d prove it!”
“Why, I would. Divil a doubt of it! I could prove that she never could, all her life.”
“Ah, my dear Sir! you couldn’t do it; nor could I advise you to try—that is, unless there were plenty more who could swear positively that she was out of her mind. Would the servants swear that? Could you yourself, now, positively swear that she was out of her mind?”
“Why—she never had any mind to be out of.”