"You speak, I think, without reflection. I, personally, should be both grieved and disappointed if anything else were to happen."
"You would be grieved and disappointed? Good gracious! Mrs Stacey, why?"
"It is only in accordance with the requirements of common decency that a person in your position should receive adequate recognition. If everyone did not call on you you would be subjected to an injurious slight."
"Certainly that point of view did not occur to me. Up to now no one worth speaking of has recognised my existence in the slightest degree. The idea, therefore, that it has suddenly become everyone's duty to do so is, to say the least, a novel one.
"So I imagined. It is, however, as I say; you see, circumstances are altered. Quite apart from the period when you will possess a town residence--"
"That period will be never."
"Never is a long while--a very long while. I say, quite apart from that period, what I cannot but call your unique position will certainly entitle you to act as one of the leaders of county society."
"How dreadful! I'm beginning to wish my position wasn't so unique."
"You speak, if you will forgive my saying so, as a child. Providence has seen fit to place you in a position in which you will be an object of universal admiration. With your youth, your appearance, your fortune, not only all Hampshire, but all England, will be at your feet.
"All England! Mrs Stacey, isn't that just a little exaggerated?"