"What, with the woman you denounce as vulgar, and contradictory?"
"I have argued these things with you, Sir John, till my patience is nearly exhausted, and you are still benighted on a subject so closely interwoven with my happiness. I tell you I am going on purpose to effect a scheme, and I take Anna Maria with me, to prepossess Mrs. Pynsent in her favour."
"And what the deuce, Gertrude, makes you wish to prepossess a woman so disagreeable as you describe Mrs. Pynsent to be? Why can't you keep away?"
"My love, I tell you Anna Maria is destined for Tom."
"And what has Tom to do with his mother? He is at Eton. You had better take lodgings near Eton, if you want to catch Tom."
"I can argue with you no more, Sir John. Your ideas are so very limited, it is impossible to graft a plan upon them. It is well your daughters have a mother who is anxious to establish them in life, since their father would effect nothing. If I was on my death-bed, my last hours would be horrified by visions of my daughters' pairing off with curates or lieutenants."
"And pray, where do you look for future bishops and Wellingtons, but among curates and lieutenants?" cried Sir John, warmly.
"Indeed, Sir John, you make me sick with your levelling principles," retorted Lady Wetheral, rising in her bed; "my health is far from strong; you have given me a severe headache, and I do request you will never again breathe the word 'curate;' it puts such wretched thoughts into my mind. Fancy Anna Maria shuffling after a fat country curate, smelling of onions, and bawling at a row of charity-children! or, Julia married to your friend Leslie, handing her basket upon a baggage-waggon! Pray, my love, send Thompson to me with some tea, and never let this disagreeable subject be renewed between us. I think I am very poorly."
Sir John was long habituated to resign his opinions when they affected his lady's health; and, on this occasion, he renounced them with his usual good humour.