So Ethel let it rest, and attended to the children’s lessons, during which Flora came into the drawing-room, and practised her music, as if nothing had happened.
Before the morning was over, Ethel contrived to visit Norman in the dining-room, where he was wont to study, and asked him whether he had made any impression on Flora.
“What impression do you mean?”
“Why, about this concern,” said Ethel; “this terrible man, that makes papa so unhappy.”
“Papa unhappy! Why, what does he know against him? I thought the Riverses were his peculiar pets.”
“The Riverses! As if, because one liked the sparkling stream, one must like a muddy ditch.”
“What harm do you know of him?” said Norman, with much surprise and anxiety, as if he feared that he had been doing wrong, in ignorance.
“Harm! Is he not a regular oaf?”
“My dear Ethel, if you wait to marry till you find some one as clever as yourself, you will wait long enough.”
“I don’t think it right for a woman to marry a man decidedly her inferior.”