"Very much too much."
"And you love them?"
"Yes."
"That's a doubtful 'yes.' "
"I do love my father very much; and my grandmother too, though not so much. I cannot help loving them;they love me so. But they are so unlike you!"
"That is not much to the purpose, after all," said John, smiling. "These are varieties of excellence in the world."
"Oh yes, but that isn't what I mean; it isn't a variety of excellence. They make me do everything that they have a mind I don't mean," she added, smiling, "that that is not like you but you always had a reason; they are different. My father makes me drink wine every now and then I don't like to do it, and he knows I do not, and I think that is the reason I have to do it."
"That's not a matter of great importance, Ellie, provided they do not make you do something wrong."
"They could not do that, I hope: and there is another thing they cannot make me do."
"What is that?"