“Except for a cab,” said Carey.
“Ah! when shall I see a Hansom again?” said Janet in a slightly sentimental tone. But she returned to the charge, “Don’t go, mother, I want you to answer.”
“Beauty versus brains! My dear, you had better open your eyes to the truth. You must make up your mind to it. It is only very exceptional people who, even in the long run, care most for feminine brains.”
“But, mother, every one did.”
“Every one in our world, Janet; but your father made our home set of those exceptional people, and we are cast out of it now!” she added, with a gasp and a gesture of irrepressible desolateness.
“Yes, that comes of this horrid move,” said the girl, in quite another tone. “Well, some day—” and she stopped.
“Some day?” said her mother.
“Some day we’ll go back again, and show what we are,” she said, proudly.
“Ah, Janet! and that’s nothing now without him.”
“Mother, how can you say so, when—?” Jane just checked herself, as she was coming to the great secret.