"It is impossible, my dear child, to combine every advantage," observed Lady Arden, with a sigh, "and the establishment, as your aunt says, would undoubtedly be a very brilliant one." Willoughby, Jane, and Louisa, all enquired eagerly about the fortune and connexions of the gentleman, and on being informed of every particular, confessed that it would certainly be a most desirable match.
"When we consider too," said Lady Arden, "the great difficulty, the next to impossibility, of meeting with suitable establishments for girls of good family and small fortunes. They cannot marry wealthy men of low connexions—that would be disgracing their families; they cannot marry the younger sons of good families, as they too are of course poor; and the elder sons cannot marry them, for they want money to pay off their incumbrances; so that when a girl so situated chances to make a conquest of a man who can afford to marry her, she may be said to be unusually fortunate." To have escaped, she might have added, the saddest of all the Dilemmas of Pride.
"Whatever sort of fellow the man may be," interrupted Willoughby, laughing.
"That is not at all a fair inference," replied her ladyship. "We are of course taking it for granted that the gentleman is of unexceptionable character, agreeable, and, in short, all that a gentleman ought to be."
"Which is, you will allow," persisted Willoughby, "taking a good deal for granted. The only thing you ladies seem determined not to take for granted is the fortune."
"Luckily," observed Mrs. Dorothea, "there is nothing to take for granted in this case. Indeed," she added, drawing up, "I should not, as I said before, have introduced Mr. Cameron to my niece if he had not been in every way a desirable connexion."
The immediate prospect of the title was now discussed, the uncle being eighty-six; the magnificence of the fine old place; the splendour of the town residence; the entertainments to be given; the equipages, the diamonds, and so forth: while at every pause Madeline was pronounced by her aunt a most fortunate girl, till vanity at length stirring within her, she began to think that she really was fortunate; and that she must, she supposed, be civil to her old beau the next time she saw him.
After this, when Lady Arden had retired to her own room, accompanied by Madeline, who was her sleeping companion, she renewed the conversation in a serious and tender strain, representing strongly to her daughter the great danger of appearing for a season or two unappropriated, with the ultimate and utter wretchedness of the single state, than which she did not know if even an unhappy marriage were not preferable. "Mrs. Dorothea says, you know," she added, trying to treat the subject jestingly, though herself ill at ease, "that a bad husband, from which heaven preserve you, my child!" she fervently ejaculated, "is quite a natural misfortune, and therefore easy to endure, in comparison with the unnatural misery of having no tie to life; no affections, no feelings, no hopes, no fears, no joys, no sorrows; yet to be surrounded with the most undignified annoyances, and to feel that for want of more important objects of interest, one's mind is degraded into being their very slave, with just enough left of its former self to make it sensible of its debasement. The cares of the wife and mother, however numerous, however anxious, are comparatively ennobling! For though it is our second self, and our children, who may be said to be parts of ourselves, that are their objects, still they are not felt for self alone; they do not spring from that most unredeemed of instincts, individual selfishness. Then, in the case of Mr. Cameron," proceeded her ladyship, "he is, your aunt says, so peculiarly amiable, and bears in every particular so high a character, that there is every reason to hope that where he fixed his affections he would make a kind and good husband." And here again Lady Arden enlarged on the splendour of the match, yet with tears in her eyes, and even more than her usual indulgent tenderness of manner; for while she could not bear to resign prospects so dazzling, she looked anxiously at her blooming child, and feared the sacrifice might be too great.
Madeline, very much affected by her mother's fond and winning gentleness, said, and thought at the time, she was sure that she should be quite happy in doing anything that would give her pleasure, promising to be always and in every thing guided by her advice.
"Still, my love, 'tis you yourself who must ultimately decide; only don't be rash in casting away, should it ever be in your offer, what has so many advantages."