“God forbid!”
“God forbid!—Why, Mrs. Ormond?”
“Because, you know, we have a year more before us.”
“That may be a very satisfactory prospect to you,” said Mr. Hervey, smiling.
“And to you, surely,” said Mrs. Ormond; “for, I suppose, you would be glad that your wife should, at least, know the common things that every body knows.”
“As to that,” said Clarence, “I should be glad that my wife were ignorant of what every body knows. Nothing is so tiresome to a man of any taste or abilities as what every body knows. I am rather desirous to have a wife who has an uncommon than a common understanding.”
“But you would choose, would not you,” said Mrs. Ormond, hesitating with an air of great deference, “that your wife should know how to write?”
“To be sure,” replied Clarence, colouring. “Does not Virginia know how to write?”
“How should she?” said Mrs. Ormond: “it is no fault of hers, poor girl—she was never taught. You know it was her grandmother’s notion that she should not learn to write, lest she should write love-letters.”
“But you promised that she should be taught to write, and I trusted to you, Mrs. Ormond.”