“Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?”
“Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.”
“Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never mentioned them.”
“No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour.”
“Take care you don’t get caught by a penniless girl, John.”
“I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble.”
Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she had, in general, pride enough for her sex.
“Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes.”
Mr. Thornton’s brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the room.
“Mother” (with a short scornful laugh), “you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy, mother.”