“ What? ”exclaimed the gentleman, in anything but a gratified tone. “You cannot be in earnest!”
She nodded. “I assure you, I was never more so! I saw at a glance, of course, that Drusilla was changed, but until I had enjoyed an hour alone with her I had no more idea of the cause than you. Though, to be sure, I might have guessed, from the scant references in her letters to his lordship, how the wind blew! He seems to be a most amiable young man, my dear sir! And this accident, shocking though it may be, throwing them together in such a way — !”
“Have I heard aright?” interrupted Mr. Morville. “Do I understand that you — you,Mrs. Morville! — would welcome such an alliance?”
“Pray, have you heard anything about the young man which would preclude my welcoming it?” she demanded.
“I know nothing of him. I daresay he is as idle and as expensive as any other of his order.”
“I am astonished that a man of your mental attainment, my dear Mr. Morville, should speak with such prejudice!” said his wife. “From all I have heard from Drusilla, he is quite unexceptionable, and blessed with so sweet a temper that I am sure he must make any female a most delightful husband!”
“He may be possessed of all the virtues!” retorted Mr. Morville, “but he must be held to stand for everything which you and I, ma’am, have dedicated our lives to combating! His very rank, I should have supposed, would have rendered him odious to you! Is it possible that I have been deceived? Were we not at one in cherishing the hope that our daughter and Henry Poundsbridge would make a match of it?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Morville reasonably, “I have a great regard for Henry Poundsbridge, and I own I should not have opposed the connection; for Drusilla, you know, is not a Beauty, and when a girl has been out for three seasons it is not the time to be picking and choosing amongst her suitors. An excellent young man, but not, you will admit, to be compared with Lord St. Erth!”
“I cannot credit the evidence of my own ears!” said Mr. Morville. “How is it possible that you should talk in such a strain as this, Mrs. Morville? Is this, I ask myself, the woman who wrote The Distaff? Is this the authoress of Reflections on the Republican State? Is this the companion with whom I have shared my every philosophic thought? I am appalled!”
“So you might well be, my dear sir, if I were such a zany as to prefer Henry Poundsbridge to the Earl of St. Erth for my daughter!” responded the lady with some asperity. “It is an alliance it would not have entered my head to seek, but if the Earl — I say, if! — were to offer for dear Drusilla, and you were to refuse your permission, I should be strongly inclined to clap you into Bedlam! I marvel, my love, that a man of your intellect should so foolishly confuse theory with practice! I shall continue to hold by those opinions which I share with you, but when it comes to my only daughter’s creditable establishment in the world it is time to set aside Utopian dreams!” She perceived that her husband was looking slightly stunned by this burst of eloquence, and at once drove him against the ropes by adding in quelling accents: “As Cordelia Consett, I must deplore the present state of society; but as a Mother I must deem myself unworthy of that title were I to spurn a connection so flattering to my Child!”