“What does your ladyship mean by some fortune?”
“Why—you have such a strange way of not understanding! We who live in the world must speak as the world speaks—we cannot recur continually to a philosophical dictionary, and if we had recourse to it, we should only be sent from a to z, and from z back again to a; see affluence, see competence, see luxury, see philosophy, and see at last that you see nothing, and that you knew as much before you opened the book as when you shut it—which indeed is what I find to be the case with most books I read.”
Triumphant from the consciousness of having hitherto had all the wit on her side, Lady Jane looked round, and continued: “Though I don’t pretend to draw my maxims from books, yet this much I do know, that in matrimony, let people have ever so much sense, and merit, and love, and all that, they must have bread and butter into the bargain, or it won’t do.”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Percy: “under that head I suppose you include all the necessaries of life.”
“And some of the luxuries, if you please; for in these days luxuries are become necessaries.”
“A barouche and four, for instance?” said Mrs. Percy.
“Oh! no, no—my dear madam, I speak within bounds; you cannot expect a barouche and four for girls who have nothing.”
“I expect it as little as I wish it for them,” said Mrs. Percy, smiling; “and as little as my daughters, I believe, desire it.”
“But if such a thing should offer, I presume you would not wish that Rosamond or Caroline should refuse?”
“That depends upon who offers it,” said Mrs. Percy. “But whatever my wishes might be, I should, as I believe I safely may, leave my daughters entirely at liberty to judge and decide for themselves.”