"Why, Mr. Dillwyn," said the lady, "you know as well as I do; and you think just as I do about it, and about this Miss Lothrop."
"Perhaps; but let us reason the matter out. Maybe it will do Tom good. What ought he to have in a wife, Mrs. Caruthers? and we'll try to show him he is looking in the wrong quarter."
"I'm not looking anywhere!" growled Tom; but no one believed him.
"Well, Philip," Mrs. Caruthers began, "he ought to marry a girl of good family."
"Certainly. By 'good family' you mean—?"
"Everybody knows what I mean."
"Possibly Tom does not."
"I mean, a girl that one knows about, and that everybody knows about; that has good blood in her veins."
"The blood of respectable and respected ancestors," Philip said.
"Yes! that is what I mean. I mean, that have been respectable and respected for a long time back—for years and years."