‘I don’t know these ladies; but if Mrs. Finch would ask Mrs. Bryanstone, she is so good-natured that I dare say she would go.’
‘That would be the most tolerable way of doing it; but I would lay you anything you please that nothing but unmitigated Finch will content her.’
‘And that is worse than no one.’
‘I wish some stop could be put to it. It is worse than Percy knows. She can’t speak to a man without flirting, and we shall have her turning some poor fellow’s head, like Wingfield’s. I don’t think it is respectable!’
‘It is very strange, so good and religious as she is.’
‘Where is the use of her religion if it does not bring down her pride or cure her obstinacy? If it would, I should see some good in the rout she makes about going to church and teaching dirty children.’
‘Oh! Arthur, dear, don’t say that.’
‘It is the truth, though.’
‘I think,’ said Violet, diffidently, ‘that some day the good will conquer the rest. Some day she will feel these things to be wrong and strive against them.’
‘Do you mean that she does not know it is wrong to be as wilful and proud as Lucifer?’