“Narrow minded?”
“Yes; you should take everything as it comes. The Miss Bennets couldn’t exist without morning callers; but if we can’t stand half an hour of them, we make them of equal importance. And besides, you know, they represent a side of life which exists. We must ignore nothing.”
“It’s a most contemptible side,” said Violet. “And besides, if Cuthbert knows, he will laugh at us. I do want him to see we mean business.”
“I mean business,” said Cosy; “if by business you mean reading; but I like to study life all round.”
“Yes,” said the elder Miss Staunton, “just as you like to study opinions all round, and consider smiling, views which, if they were true, would send one out into a moral and spiritual wilderness. You see the force of nothing.”
“If so, there must be an awfully stupid piece in me,” said Constancy, as if rather struck.
“But, after all, you know, whatever is true, the world has got along somehow hitherto, and I suppose it will continue to do so; so why worry.”
“Look here,” said Florella, “if we quarrel over the young men, we shall be more like the Miss Bennets than ever. We belong, you know, a little to the Waynfletes through Aunt Connie, and we knew them long ago. I am going back to my harebells. Violet, will you come?”
A great many young women aspired to the friendship of Constancy Vyner, and courted her, as girls do court each other. Florella’s friends did not make her of so much importance; but they told her all their troubles.