Caroline sniffed at the suggestion, Sophia sighed.
“The world’s the same everywhere,” Caroline said. “If you know one man you know them all.”
“But if you know a great many, you will know one all the better. However,” she smiled in the way of which her stepsisters were afraid, “I wasn’t thinking of men.”
“That’s where you’re so unnatural.”
“I was thinking of places—cities and mountains and plains.”
“You’ll get the plague or be run away with by brigands.”
“I think Henrietta and I would rather like the brigands. We must avoid the plague.”
“Smallpox,” Caroline went on, “and your complexions ruined.”
“I wish you would stay at home,” Sophia said. “Caroline and I are getting old.”
“Nonsense, Sophia! I’d go myself for twopence. But I’d better wait here and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start out together with a bag of it.” She laughed loudly at the prospect of setting forth with the respectable James. “And it wouldn’t be the first elopement I’d planned either. When I was eighteen I set my mind on getting out of my bedroom window with a bundle—no, of course I never told you, Sophia. You would have run in hysterics to the General. But there was never one among them all who was worth the inconvenience, so I gave it up. I always had more sense than sentiment.” She sighed with regret for the legions of disappointed and fictitious lovers waiting under windows, with which her mind was peopled. “Not one,” she repeated.