“If it comes to that,” retorted Margaret, “he would be excessively grieved to find you reading nothing better than the latest modes!”
They looked at one another; Sophy’s lip quivered. “Dear Meg, do pray give it to me, only for a moment! ”
“Well, I will when I have finished the Narrative of Augustus Waldstein,” said Margaret. “But only for a moment, mind!”
“Wait, I know there is something here to the purpose!” said Arabella, dropping her work to flick over the pages of the volume abandoned by Sophia. “Method of Preserving Milk by Horse-Radish ... White Wax for the Nails ... Human Teeth placed to Stumps.. Yes, here it is! Now, listen, Meg! Where a Female has in early life dedicated her attention to novel-reading she is unfit to become the companion of a man of sense, or to conduct a family with propriety and decorum. There!” She looked up, the prim pursing of her lips enchantingly belied by her dancing eyes.
“I am sure Mama is not unfit to be the companion of a man of sense!” cried Margaret indignantly. “And she reads novels! And even Papa does not find The Wanderer objectionable, or Mrs. Edgeworth’s Tales!”
“No, but he did not like it when he found Bella reading The Hungarian Brothers, or The Children of the Abbey,” said Sophia, seizing the opportunity to twitch The Ladies’ Monthly Museum out of her sister’s slackened grasp, “He said there was a great deal of nonsense in such books, and that the moral tone was sadly lacking.”
“Moral tone is not lacking in the serial I am reading!” declared Margaret, quite ruffled. “Look what it says there, near the bottom of the page! ‘ Albert! be purity of character your duty?’ I am sure he could not dislike that!”
Arabella rubbed the tip of her nose. “Well, I think he would say it was fustian,” she remarked candidly. “But do give the book back to her, Sophy!”
“I will, when I have found what I’m looking for. Besides, it was I who had the happy notion to borrow the volumes from Mrs. Caterham, so—Yes, here it is! It says that only jewelry of very plain workmanship is worn in the mornings nowadays.” She added, on a note of doubt: “I daresay the fashions don’t change so very fast, even in London. This number is only three years old.”
The sufferer on the sofa sat up cautiously. “But Bella hasn’t got any jewelry, has she?”