"Exactly."
"What should you do if you were in my place, Aunt Caroline?"
"Personally, it would not amuse me to marry Mr. Seaton; on the contrary, it would bore me considerably, he is so didactic and so overpoweringly in earnest; but that is no reason why it should not amuse you."
"It wouldn't amuse me to marry Uncle Benjamin, you see; and yet it amuses you."
"Not always, my dear; I have known it have quite an opposite effect. But then your uncle is a G.C.B. and a rich man, and those things amuse me a good deal."
"But love ought to count for something," said Isabel timidly.
"Of course it ought; I am allowing for that; but it counts a good deal more with some women than it does with others, and a woman should take this into consideration. Some women positively enjoy a little mild starvation flavoured with romance."
"I should, I think."
"Then take it, my dear," said Lady Farley, "positive starvation is always, I believe, indigestible; but the moderate starvation, which your own comfortable little income would allow of, might prove quite a treat to people who like picnics."
"By 'moderate starvation' I suppose you mean doing one's own hair and buttoning one's own boots?"