"I do not want to be rich. The rich people we know are not so nice, I am sure. Few of them are gentlemen."
"I know, my dear. I understand you perfectly. Love in a cottage, and that sort of thing. When I was a girl, the novels were full of it, and it was very pretty. The novels are much more sensible nowadays, and it is strange that the young people who read them should still be as foolish as ever."
"I do not think life without love would be worth the having."
"Of course not, my shepherdess! It would be charming to sit in the woods always, holding a crook tied with nice fresh blue satin ribbon, and a straw hat cocked on one side, a pet lamb at one's feet, and a swain beside one to whistle tunes upon a reed, like the Dresden-china figures; but when a shower came, and the ribbons got wet, it would be but a draggle-tailed diversion, believe me. Remember the old saying, 'When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.' You can't make love on an empty stomach. Housekeeping knocks a deal of the romance out of life."
"Walter has money, mother. With mine added, we shall be quite well off."
"I think, Margaret, if I had been pleading a gentleman's cause, I would not have put him in the invidious light of requiring a wife's fortune to enrich him. It sounds mercenary. Not that I wish to speak unkindly of your friend; but he lays himself open to the suspicion of fortune-hunting, by running after a girl with your prospects. Your uncle is not likely to marry, and you might look so very much higher, if you only had common-sense."
"I don't know where I should look for 'higher.' You have always said that his people were an excellent family in England."
"We are Canadians, my dear. Good connections in England will not help him much with us, unless they are bankers. He is a younger son, and his brother has children, so his prospect of ever coming to the family property is not worth counting. He has got all they can afford to give him, and is a fixture on this side the Atlantic for life."
"He is better off than most young men. Yet see how quickly some of them get on, and rise to the top."
"He will never rise, my dear. He has not been trained for getting on in this country. He will not spend as little as our young men do, and he has not the first idea of how to make a fortune."