Rhoda admitted the fact.
“And what do you think of doing?”
Rhoda looked blankly first at her aunt, then at her cousin. Phoebe came hastily to the rescue.
“She is shortly to be married, Mother; did you forget?”
“Ah!” said Mrs Latrobe, still contemplating Rhoda. “Well—if it hold—you may as well be married from hence, I suppose. Is the day fixed?”
“No, Aunt Anne.”
“I think, my dear,” remarked Mrs Latrobe, sipping her tea, “’twould be better if you said Madam.—Why, Phoebe, what old-fashioned china! Sure it cannot have been new these forty years. I shall sweep away all that rubbish.—Whom are you going to marry? Is he well off?—Phoebe, those shoe-buckles of yours are quite shabby. I cannot have you wear such trumpery. You must remember what is due to you.—Well, my dear?”
Rhoda had much less practice in the school of patience than Phoebe, and she found the virtue difficult just then. But she restrained herself as well as she could.
“I am engaged in marriage with Mr Marcus Welles; and he has an estate, and spends three thousand pounds by the year.”
“Welles! A Welles of Buckinghamshire?”