"Oh! the Clontarfs, and Dicky Browne, and Lady Swansdown and a great many others."
"Mr. Beauclerk?" she does not look at Joyce as she asks this question.
"Yes."
A little silence follows, broken at last by Joyce.
"May I go?"
"Do you think it is the best thing for you to do?" says Mrs. Monkton, flushing delicately. "Think, darling! You know—you must know, because you have it always before you," flushing even deeper, "that to marry into a family where you are not welcomed with open heart is to know much private discomfiture."
"I know this too," says the girl, petulantly, "that to be married to a man like Freddy, who consults your lightest wish, and is your lover always, is worth the enduring of anything."
"I think that too," says Mrs. Monkton, who has now grown rather pale. "But there is still one more thing to know—that in making such a marriage as we have described, a woman lays out a thorny path for her husband. She separates him from his family, and as all good men have strong home ties, she naturally compels him to feel many a secret pang."
"But he has his compensations. Do you think if Freddy got the chance, he would give you up and go back to his family?"
"No—not that. But to rejoice in that thought is to be selfish. Why should he not have my love and the love of his people too? There is a want somewhere. What I wish to impress upon you, Joyce, is this, that a woman who marries a man against his parents' wishes has much to regret, much to endure."