“You could not prevent his accosting you, but you might have prevented his giving all this trouble to papa. You know we should never allow it.”
“Indeed I only said if!”
“You had no right to say anything. When a young lady knows a man is not to be encouraged, she should say nothing to give him an advantage. You could never expect us to let you go to a barbarous place at the other end of the world with a man of as good as no religion at all.”
“He goes to church,” said Essie, too simple to look beyond.
“Only here, to please his mother. My dear, you must put this out of your head. Even if he were very different, we should never let you marry a first cousin, and he knows it. It was very wrong in him to have spoken to you.”
“Please don’t let him do it again,” said Esther, faintly.
“That’s right, my dear,” with a kiss of forgiveness. “I am sure you are too good a girl really to care for him.”
“I wish he would not care for me,” sighed poor Essie, wearily. “He always was so kind, and now they are in trouble I couldn’t vex him.”
“Oh, my dear, young men get over things of this sort half a dozen times in their lives.”
Essie was not delighted with this mode of consolation, and when her mother tenderly smoothed back her hair, and bade her bathe her face and dress for dinner, she clung to her and said—