"Yes, I know it. He came to the Court yesterday morning to tell me of it. I think Mary will make him a good wife."
"She has courage," said Mr. Grubb, with a pleasant laugh. "How many children are there? Ten?"
"No. Eight. And they are of all ages; from seven, up to four-and-twenty," added Miss Upton.
Lady Acorn was nodding her head, in emphatic acquiescence to Mr. Grubb's remark. "I told Mary she had the courage of Job, when the thing first came to my ears. Eight children and a poor country Rector! Young women are ready to marry a broomstick when they get to Mary's age, if the chance falls in their way."
"Had Job so much courage, mamma?" put in Adela.
"Courage or patience, or some such virtue. It is not I that would have taken an old widower with a flock of young ones," continued the countess, in her plain-speaking tartness.
"You will get rid of us all in time, mamma," observed Adela.
"It entails trouble enough," was her mother's ungracious rejoinder. "I am quite done over with heat and fatigue now—going about from one place to another after Mary's things. Gowns and bonnets and slips and mantles, and all the rest of it! Girls are so exacting when they are going to marry: they must have this, and they must have that, and Mary is no exception to the rule. One would think she had picked up a duke."
"It is natural they should be," observed Miss Upton.
"But it's not the less ridiculous," retorted the countess. "One thing I must say—that Tom Cleveland is showing himself in desperate haste to take another wife."