"I think I am worse in health and spirits when I sit in this room; it puts me in mind of my poor daughters, who are gone. I am now quite deserted and forlorn; not one of them invites me to their home!"
Christobelle mentioned Brierly and the affection of its inmates.
"Fiddlestick, Bell! you are always quoting Brierly! I don't like Boscawen. I have no opinion of a man who allows his wife to be driven by a pair of horses, when he can afford four—I dislike avarice. And Isabel would make me so nervous, by carrying a great heavy baby about, and disordering her dress! I shall never visit Brierly."
"The Pynsents will be home soon, mamma."
"What's that to me, Bell? You don't suppose I shall stay at Hatton, and hear Mrs. Pynsent's remarks about Ripley, and Clara's folly in coming to an open rupture with her husband? The Tom Pynsents should have accepted Hatton when it was first proposed to them. I shall not visit there till Anna Maria is mistress of the property."
"But you will go to poor Clara, mamma."
"What am I to go to Ripley for?—to see my daughter ill-treated, or be treated myself with indifference? Clara had no business to make herself conspicuous by quarrelling. I wish, Bell, when you do vouchsafe to talk, that you would choose better subjects to converse upon. Your poor father's education has only fitted you to be a nuisance. I hate girls with books in their hands, and dulness on their tongues."
Christobelle changed the conversation.