"Well?" cried Lydia, impatiently.
"I went over the affair again at night with myself, looking at it from all points of view, weighing its merits and demerits, and trying to balance one against the other," pursued Mrs. St. Clare. "The result I came to was this, Lydia: to let the matter take its course."
Lydia opened her eyes very widely. "What, to let—to let her marry him?"
"Perhaps. But you jump to conclusions too rapidly, Lydia."
"Why, he is only a common medical practitioner!"
"There of course lies the objection. But he is not a 'common' practitioner, Lydia. If he were so, do you suppose I should invite him here as I do, and make much of him? He is a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman. In point of fact," added Mrs. St. Clare, in a lower tone, as if the acknowledgment might only be given in a whisper, "our branch of the St. Clare family is little, if any, better than the Raynors——"
"Mamma, how can you say so?" burst forth Lydia. "It is not true. And the Raynors have always been as poor as church mice."
"And—I was going to say," went on Mrs. St. Clare with equanimity—"he is the heir to Eagles' Nest."
Lydia sat back in her chair, a scowl on her brow. She could not contradict that.
"In most cases of this kind there are advantages and disadvantages," quietly spoke Mrs. St. Clare, "and I tried, as I tell you, to put the one side against the other, and see which was the weightier. On the one hand there is his profession, and his want of connections; on the other, there is Eagles' Nest, and his own personal attractions. You are looking very cross, Lydia. You think, I see, that Daisy might do better."