"Sometimes! I thought you were like the captain, and believed in love."
"Sometimes," she said again. "It does not do in every case: that is what I object to the captain and you for. You are always so absolute. Love rejects suitableness; and if Catherine is not quite wrong—"
"She is quite wrong!" cried Hester again, vehemently. "She does not know Harry any more than she knows me. He is not clever, but he is true."
"Then marry him, my dear."
"Why should I marry him?—one does not marry every one whom Catherine misjudges—oh, there would be too many!—nor even to please mother."
"I am perhaps as poor a judge as Catherine, Hester."
"Now you are unjust—now you are unkind!" cried the girl, with anger in her eyes.
"Come," said Mrs. Morgan, "you must not assault me. You are so young and so fierce: and my old man is not here to take my part."
"I cannot ask him, because he is a man," said Hester; "but I know what he would say. He would not say 'Sometimes' like you; he would say 'Never!' And that is what I think too."
"Because you are so young, my dear; and my old man, bless him, he is very young. But this world is a very strange place. Right and wrong, are like black and white; they are distinct and easy. The things that baffle us are those that perhaps are not quite right, but certainly are not wrong."