“No—” replied Julia, “that is—yes. I mean, you and I, you know.” “Certainly,” said Frances, “we have loved him always; but then, you know, we are not going to marry him.”
“No, I suppose papa would not think it right, if we were,” said Julia.
“You may be sure of that!” replied Frances. “It is very plain, from his letters, and from what grandmamma and Mr. Jackson said the other day, about Henry’s nonsense, what sort of people papa intends us to marry.”
“I shall never marry any one while I live!” said Julia, with great earnestness.
“You can’t tell, you know, Julia,” replied Frances; “you may happen to fall in love; and if you do, it will be desperately! for you know how enthusiastic you always are, about any one you care for!”
“Fall in love with a stranger, indeed!” exclaimed Julia. Then, after a momentary pause, she added, “do you think yourself, Frances, that Lady Susan can possibly love him as well as—as we do?”
“Why, I dare say,” replied Frances, “if any thing should prevent their being married, that Lady Susan would forget him by and bye, whereas you and I shall always have the same regard for Edmund, that we have had for him all our lives. But, on the other hand, there is Lady Susan going to waive all about his unknown birth, that some people, you know, are so ill natured about. She says, his own nobility is more to her, than any he could derive from all the ancestors that ever were in the world.”
“Did she say so to you, Frances?” asked Julia.
“Yes,” replied her sister, “and she is going, she says, to give him, most cheerfully, her hand, her heart, and her fifty thousand pounds, in preference to many of the first young noblemen in the kingdom, among whom she might choose; and you and I are not going to do all that for him, you know!”
Julia sighed heavily, and made no immediate reply.—In a little time she said, “Do you think, Frances, you could do so much for Edmund?”