'But he cannot be the same person.'
'Oh, no. Besides, this Captain Dalton has just come from India with his regiment. And so you think he will be sure to fall in love with me?' added Mrs. Trelawney, recovering her colour and her smiles; 'and I with him perhaps.'
'That does not follow; but he seems just the kind of man I think a widow might fall in love with—handsome and manly, grave, earnest, and sympathetic.'
'But he may share in the aversion of Mr. Weller, senior, and have his tendency to beware of widows. I feel certain, Alison dear, that your Captain Dalton will never suit me.'
'You have seen him, then?'
'Yes—with the buckhounds the other day.'
'Wilmot, who admires you so much, will one day be very rich, they say.'
'Don't talk thus, Alison, or I shall begin to deem you what I know you are not—mercenary; but Jerry Wilmot has little just now; he has, however, a knowledge of horseflesh and a great capability for spending money, and thinks a pack of hounds in a hunting country is necessary to existence. He is a detrimental of the first water, and the special bête-noire of Belgravian and Tyburnian mammas.'
'It is a pity you should ever seclude yourself as you sometimes do, Laura,' said Alison, looking at her beautiful friend with genuine admiration; 'all men admire you so much, and you have but to hold up your little finger to make them kneel at your feet.'
'How you flatter me! But I never will hold up my little finger, nor would I marry again for the mines of Potosi and Peru. It is as well that little Netty is so busy with that photographic album, or she might marvel at your anxiety to provide her with a papa.'