“Yes, I believe you safely may,” said Lady Jane, “as long as you keep them here. You might as well talk of leaving them at liberty in the deserts of Arabia. You don’t expect that knights and squires should come hither in quest of your damsels?”
“Then you would have the damsels sally forth in quest of the knights and squires?” said Mr. Percy.
“Let them sally forth at any rate,” said Lady Jane, laughing; “nobody has a right to ask in quest of what. We are not now in the times of ancient romance, when young ladies were to sit straight-laced at their looms, or never to stir farther than to their bower windows.”
“Young ladies must now go a great deal farther,” said Mr. Percy, “before the discourteous knights will deign to take any notice of them.”
“Ay, indeed, it is shameful!” said Lady Jane sighing. “I declare it is shameful!” repeated she, indignantly. “Do you know, that last winter at Bath the ladies were forced to ask the gentlemen to dance?”
“Forced?” said Mr. Percy.
“Yes, forced!” said Lady Jane, “or else they must have sat still all night like so many simpletons.”
“Sad alternative!” said Mr. Percy; “and what is worse, I understand that partners for life are scarcely to be had on easier terms; at least so I am informed by one of your excellent modern mothers, Mrs. Chatterton, who has been leading her three gawky graces about from one watering-place to another these six years, fishing, and hunting, and hawking for husbands. ‘There now! I have carried my girls to Bath, and to London, and to Tunbridge, and to Weymouth, and to Cheltenham, and every where; I am sure I can do no more for them.’ I assure you,” continued Mr. Percy, “I have heard Mrs. Chatterton say these very words in a room full of company.”
“In a room full of company? Shocking!” said Lady Jane. “But then poor Mrs. Chatterton is a fool, you know; and, what is worse, not well mannered,—how should she? But I flatter myself, if you will trust me with your daughter Caroline, we should manage matters rather better. Now let me tell you my plan. My plan is to take Caroline with me immediately to Tunbridge, previous to her London campaign. Nothing can be a greater mistake than to keep a young lady up, and prevent her being seen till the moment when she is to be brought out: it is of incalculable advantage that, previously to her appearance in the great world, she should have been seen by certain fashionable prôneurs. It is essential that certain reports respecting her accomplishments and connexions should have had time to circulate properly.”
All this Mr. and Mrs. Percy acknowledged, in as unqualified a manner as Lady Jane could desire, was fit and necessary to secure what is called a young lady’s success in the fashionable world; but they said that it was not their object to dispose of their daughters, as it is called, to the best advantage. The arts which are commonly practised for this purpose they thought not only indelicate, but ultimately impolitic and absurd; for men in general are now so well aware of them, that they avoid the snares, and ridicule and detest those by whom they are contrived. If, now and then, a dupe be found, still the chance is, that the match so made turns out unhappily; at best, attachments formed in public places, and in the hurry of a town life, can seldom be founded on any real knowledge of character, or suitableness of taste and temper. “It is much more probable,” added Mrs. Percy, “that happy marriages should be made where people have leisure and opportunities of becoming really and intimately acquainted with each other’s dispositions.”