'But I am sure,' said Lavinia, 'if you wanted it for any proper purpose, my father would have denied himself everything, in order to supply you.'
'Yes, yes; but suppose I want it for a purpose that is not proper, how am I to get it then?'
'Why, then, my dear Lionel, surely you must be sensible you ought to go without it,' cried the sisters, in a breath.
'Ay, that's as you girls say, that know nothing of the matter. If a young man, when he goes into the world, was to make such a speech as that, he would be pointed at. Besides, who must he live with? You don't suppose he is to shut himself up, with a few musty books, sleeping over the fire, under pretence of study, all day long, do you? like young Melmond, who knows no more of the world than one of you do?'
'Indeed,' said Camilla, 'he seemed to me an amiable and modest young man, though very romantic.'
'O, I dare say he did! I could have laid any wager of that. He's just a girl's man, just the very thing, all sentiment, and poetry and heroics. But we, my little dear, we lads of spirit, hold all that amazing cheap. I assure you, I would as soon be seen trying on a lady's cap at a glass, as poring over a crazy old author when I could help it. I warrant you think, because one is at the university, one must all be book-worms?'
'Why, what else do you go there for but to study?'
'Every thing in the world, my dear.'
'But are there not sometimes young men who are scholars without being book-worms?' cried Camilla, half colouring; 'is not—is not Edgar Mandlebert—'
'O yes, yes; an odd thing of that sort happens now and then. Mandlebert has spirit enough to carry it off pretty well, without being ridiculous; though he is as deep, for his time, as e'er an old fellow of a college. But then this is no rule for others. You must not expect an Edgar Mandlebert at every turn.'