“Thank you,” he said, but without any signs of irritation.
“And so you are; you are, Archibald. To suffer that girl, who has been angling after you so long, to catch you at last.”
“She has not angled after me; had she done so, she would probably never have been Mrs. Carlyle. Whatever passing fancy she may have entertained for me in earlier days, she has shown no symptoms of it of late years; and I am quite certain that she had no more thought or idea that I should choose her for my second wife, than you had I should choose you. Others have angled after me too palpably, but Barbara has not.”
“She is a conceited minx, as vain as she is high.”
“What else have you to urge against her?”
“I would have married a girl without a slur, if I must have married,” aggravatingly returned Miss Corny.
“Slur?”
“Slur, yes. Dear me, is it an honor—the possessing a brother such as Richard?”
Miss Corny sniffed. “Pigs may fly; but I never saw them try at it.”
“The next consideration, Cornelia, is about your residence. You will go back, I presume, to your own home.”