"For shame, Clara," interrupted her brother, "you forget what you are saying, and the best thing for you is, that we should forget it too."
"No indeed," replied she smiling; "must she not suppose you endowed with an extraordinary indifference to cold, and a super-human energy of frame to be pleased at encountering such a storm as this? hark to the wind!"
"Well, I am convinced, that were we removed from the vicinity of the Castle, as you so much desire, Clara, we should suffer as much inconvenience from the loss of many comforts which they afford us now; and you would admit then, that the good and evil were more equally balanced than you are at present disposed to allow."
"We might not have quite so much game, Edward; Miss Osborne would not give me flowers, and we should not go to assemblies in their coach; but on the other hand, I should not be so plagued by our best maid marrying their groom, as Lucy is going to do next month, because the Osborne Arms will then be vacant; nor would the laundress tell me when I complained of her clear-starching, that she had always helped in my lady's laundry, and the housekeeper had been perfectly satisfied with her."
"But pray tell me," said Emma, "is there any reason for her ladyship's curiously illegible hand, has she lost any of her fingers, or did she never learn to write?"
"I assure you she would be surprised at your not admiring her writing," said Mrs. Willis; "she piques herself on its peculiar and aristocratic beauty."
"I am sure," said Elizabeth, "I have often been punished for writing which was much better than that; the writing master at school would have groaned at such a prodigious waste of paper and ink."
"Nevertheless, it thoroughly attains the object at which she aims, to be unique," said Mr. Howard, "and I am sure she would be much surprised at hearing it was illegible; but she thinks a fair, flowing hand, in an Italian character, much more a round, distinct, and clear one, only fit for tradesmen's accounts or clergymen's sermons."
"She has the same taste in everything," said his sister; "that frightful little dog she is so fond of petting, and half the ornaments in the drawing-room have no value but in their singularity."
"And do her family inherit her tastes?" enquired Emma, "does her son, for instance, prefer the wonderful to the beautiful?"