"I certainly think you will be quite right to come to town: but I should not have them to live with you, if I were you."
"Shouldn't you? It might be a risk: but then I shouldn't do it unless there was room enough to leave them quite free. The thing I am afraid of is that they wouldn't accept."
"Oh, Phil Compton will accept," said John, hurriedly.
"Why are you so sure? I think often you know more about him than you ever say."
"I don't know much about him, but I know that a man of uncertain income and not very delicate feelings is generally glad enough to have the expenses of the season taken off him: and even get all the more pleasure out of it when he has his living free."
"That's not a very elevated view to take of the transaction, John."
"My dear aunt, I did not think you expected anything very elevated from the Comptons. They are not the sort of family from which one expects——"
"And yet it is the family that my Elinor belongs to: she is a Compton."
"I did not think of that," said John, a little disconcerted. Then he added, "There is no very elevated standard in such matters. Want of money has no law: and of course there are better things involved, for he might be very glad that Elinor should have her mother to go out with her, to stand by when—a man might have other engagements."
Mrs. Dennistoun looked at him closely and shook her head. She was not very much reassured by this view of the case. "At all events I shall try it," she said.