"My poor girl, I am sorry for you—very sorry. But I see no chance of your ever becoming his wife."
"I am contented to remain single, papa; I never can love another as I love him."
"Stuff and nonsense! What should hinder you? Why, child, you will get over this romantic passion. Few people are able to marry the first person with whom they fall in love; and, in nine cases out of ten, they would be grievously disappointed if they did. This Anthony Hurdlestone may be a good young man, but his father is a very bad man. His children may inherit some of the family propensities, which you know, my little daughter are everything but agreeable. I should not like to be grandpapa to a second edition of Mark Hurdlestone, or even of his hopeful nephew, Master Godfrey."
"Ah, my dear father," said Juliet, with great simplicity, "this may be all very true; but how do you know that we should have any children?"
This unexpected confession threw the old Captain, in spite of his grave lecture, into convulsions of laughter, whilst it covered his daughter's face with crimson blushes.
"Miss Juliet!" cried her aunt, who entered just in time to hear her niece speak her thoughts aloud, "I am perfectly astonished at you. Have you no sense of decorum?"
"Pshaw, Dolly!" said the Captain, still laughing. "It was quite accidental. Your over delicate ladies are the most indelicate people in the world. I am sure what the child said was perfectly natural."
"Nature, Captain Whitmore, is not the best book for young ladies to study," said Miss Dorothy, drawing herself up to her full height. "If we were to act entirely from her suggestions, we should reduce ourselves to a level with the brutes. Young ladies should never venture a remark until they have duly considered what they have to say. They should know how to keep the organ of speech in due subjection."
"And pray, Dolly, will you inform me at what age a lady should commence this laudable act of self-denial? for I am pretty certain that your first lesson is still to learn."
Oh, how poor Aunt Dorothy flounced and flew, at this speech! how she let her tongue run on, without bit or bridle, while vindicating her injured honor from this foul aspersion, quite forgetting her own theory in the redundancy of her practice! There never was, by her own account, such a discreet, amiable, well-spoken, benevolent, and virtuous gentlewoman! And how the cruel Captain continued to laugh at, and quiz, and draw her out: until Juliet, in order to cause a diversion in her aunt's favor, pinched her favorite black cat's ear. But this stratagem only turned the whole torrent of the old maid's wrath upon herself.