"I suppose Sir John is in his study," observed Mr. Boscawen, rising at the conclusion of breakfast.
"Oh, yes, Sir John breakfasts at seven o'clock, when people are, or ought to be, fast asleep. I can't comprehend such ungenial hours and taste. Surely, if breakfast is ended before eleven o'clock, there is sufficient leisure for the affairs of life."
Mr Boscawen's disgust rose to his eyes, and overflowed in the expression of his countenance; but a strong effort subdued the sentence which trembled upon his lips. He rose, and quitted the breakfast-room. When the door closed upon his awful figure, Isabel's misery burst forth: she threw her arms around Clara, who was seated near her, and sobbed violently.
"Oh, mamma, I wish I had never, never married!"
"My dear Mrs. Boscawen," replied her mother, in very soothing accents, "you are not aware of what you say. I am sure you would have been miserable single, and I should have been tormented to death with an unmarried daughter always at my elbow. You are very comfortably and happily married, my love."
"Oh, how can you say so, mamma! I wish I was Chrystal, to sit with papa, and never be obliged to do what I did not like! I wish I was you, Clara, happy and unmarried! I wish I was a bird, or the cat, or any thing but what I am!" Poor Isabel wept freely: she proceeded—"I am going to be shut up with Miss Tabitha and Mr. Boscawen, in that large, gloomy Brierly; I must not laugh, or speak to old John, or see any pleasant company. Oh, no one can tell the dullness and frightfulness of Brierly!"
"My dear Isabel, reflect upon matrimony, and tell me who you ever saw perfectly free from care in that state? I consider it a very proper and natural institution, so very properly arranged, and so particularly enforced, that I confess I have no opinion of a woman who does not marry, if all the comforts of life are secured to her. If a woman is protected by a handsome settlement, and those kind of things, she ought to marry."
"Do you think so?" said Isabel, languidly.
"I do: I think you married extremely well, and you ought to consider yourself peculiarly fortunate. If Mr. Boscawen is rigid in exacting painful sacrifices from you, remember he was very liberal in making a settlement; there must be trials, my dear children. I am a proof that the happiest matrimony has cares. Your poor father never assisted me in my anxieties about you all: I am certain Lord Ennismore would never have married Julia, if my unwearied efforts had not domesticated him at Wetheral."