When they had eaten the pudding, the barrister made a speech praising the delights of one’s own fireside, that refuge from the world and from all men: that harbour where one spends one’s happiest hours in the company of one’s real friends.
Mary-Louisa began to cry, and when he urged her to tell him the cause of her distress, and the reason of her unhappiness, she told him in a voice broken by sobs that she could see that he was missing his mother and sisters.
He replied that he did not miss them in the least, and that he should wish them far away if they happened to turn up now.
“But why couldn’t he marry her?”
“Weren’t they as good as married?”
“No, they weren’t married properly.”
“By a clergyman? In his opinion a clergyman was nothing but a student who had passed his examinations, and his incantations were pure mythology.”
“That was beyond her, but she knew that something was wrong, and the other people in the house pointed their fingers at her.”
“Let them point!”
Sophy joined in the conversation. She said she knew that they were not good enough for his relations; but she didn’t mind. Let everybody keep his own place and be content.