"This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to the follies of their sons, Emmeline!"
"No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless him, before the day comes?"
He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:—"And I must do this, or it will end in misery? How else can it end? Can I save him from the seed he has sown? Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has repeated his cousin's sin. You see the end of that."...
"Oh, so different! This young person is not, is not of the class poor Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed it is different. And he—be just and admit his nobleness. I fancied you did. This young person has great beauty, she has the elements of good breeding, she—indeed I think, had she been in another position, you would not have looked upon her unfavourably."
"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke with sublime bitterness.
"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it."
"Pass her."
"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met her, he thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should lose her for ever, and in the madness of an hour he did this." ...
"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches."
"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as young men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?"