“I am sure everything would not depend on the man, so far as I am concerned,” she said. “Men are all very well, but you must take everything into account before you go and sacrifice yourself to them. One man is very much like another, so far as I can see. One doesn’t expect to meet a Bayard nowadays.”
“But why not, my dear?” said Mrs Mitford. “There are Bayards in the world as much as there ever were. I am sure I know one. If it had been the time for knights, he would have been a Bayard; and as it is not the time for knights, he is the very best, the truest, and tenderest! No one ever knew him to think of himself. Oh, my dear! there are some men whose circumstances you never would think of—not even you.”
“But I am very worldly,” said Kate, shaking her head; “that is how I have been brought up. If I cared for anybody who was poor, I should give him no rest till he got rich. If I did not like his profession, or anything, I should make him change it. I don’t mean to say I approve of myself, and, of course, you can’t approve of me, but I know that is what I should do.”
“I think we had better go in and have some tea,” said Mrs Mitford, with a half-sigh. There was some regret in it for the heiress whom John had manifestly lost, for it was certain that a girl with such ideas would never touch John’s heart; and there was some satisfaction, too, for she should have her boy to herself.
“It is so sweet out here,” said Kate, with gentle passive opposition, “and there are the gentlemen coming out to join us—at least, there is your son.”
“John is so fond of the garden,” said Mrs Mitford, with another little sigh. She felt disposed to detach Kate’s arm from her own, and run to her boy and warn him. But politeness forbade such a step, and his mother’s wistful eyes watched his tall figure approaching in the darkness—approaching unconscious to his fate.
“We were talking of you,” said Kate, with a composure which filled Mrs Mitford with dismay,” and about clergymen generally. I should be frightened if I were you—one would have to be so very, very good. Don’t you ever feel frightened when you think that you will have to teach everybody, and set everybody a good example? I think the very thought would make me wicked, if it were me.”
“Should it?” said John,—and his mother thought with a little dread that he looked more ready to enter into the talk than she had ever seen him before; “but then I don’t understand how you could be wicked if you were to try.”
“Ah! but I do,” said Kate, “and I could not bear it. Do you really like being a clergyman? you who are so young and—different. I can fancy it of an old gentleman like Dr Mitford; but you——”