"In London! But you know very well I cannot live in London."
"Then you can go down to Brierley."
"And how often shall you come there?"
"When the chinks of business are wide enough to let me slip through."
"Business! All you live for is business. Mr. Copley, what do you expect is to become of Dolly, shut up in a cottage down in the country?"
"How is she to get married, you mean? She expects a fairy prince to come along one of these days; and of course he could find her at Brierley as easily as anywhere. It makes no difference in a fairy tale. In fact, the unlikely places are just the ones where the princes turn up."
"You will not be serious!" sighed Mrs. Copley.
"Serious? I am nothing but serious. The regular suitor, proposed by the parents, has offered himself and been rejected; and now there is nothing to do but to wait for the fairy prince."
Poor Mrs. Copley gave it up. Her husband's words were always too quick for her.
Brierley was afterwards discussed between her and Dolly. The proposal was welcome to neither of them. Yet London would not do for Mrs. Copley; she grew impatient of it more and more. And so, within a week after their arrival, they left it and went down again to their old home in the country. It felt like going to prison, Mrs. Copley said. Though the country was still full of summer's wealth and beauty; and it was impossible not to feel the momentary delight of the change from London. The little garden was crowded with flowers, the fields all around rich in grass and grain; the great trees of the park standing in their unchanged regal beauty; the air sweet as air could be, without orange blossoms. And yet it seemed to the two ladies, when Mr. Copley left them again after taking them down to the cottage, that they were shut off and shut up in a respectable and very eligible prison, from whence escape was doubtful.