"It would be a great deal of fuss; and no use."
"No use! Yes, it would; just the use I am telling you. It would introduce you to the best society."
"But I am not going to live in England all my life, mother."
"How do you know?" very sharply. "How do you know where you are going to live?"
"Why, father won't stay there always, will he?"
"I am sure I don't know what your father will take into his head. I may be called to end my days in Japan. But you—Look here; has your aunt made you as old-fashioned as she is herself?"
"How, mother?"
"I am sure I can't tell how! There are ever so many ways. There's the benevolent sort, and there's the devout sort, and there's the puritanical sort. Has she put it into your head that it is good to be a hermit and separate yourself from the rest of the world?"
Dolly laughed and denied that charge.
"She's a very good woman, I suppose; but she is ridiculous," Mrs. Copley went on. "Don't be ridiculous, whatever you are. You can't do any good to anybody by being ridiculous."