"But don't you think, aunt, that my money has some influence in bringing him here?" And Margaretta looked up archly into her aunt's face.
"It may have, for aught I can tell. We cannot see the motives of any one. But I should be inclined to think that money would have little influence with Thomas Fielding, were not every thing else in agreement. He is, I think, a man of fixed and genuine principles."
"No doubt, aunt. But, still, I can't relish his society. And if I can't, I can't."
"Very true. If you can't enjoy his company, why you can't. But it cannot be, certainly, from any want, on his part, of gentlemanly manners, or kind attentions to you."
"No; but, then, he is so dull. I should die if I had no other company."
"Indeed, my child," Aunt Riston said, in a serious tone, "you ought to make the effort to esteem and relish the society of those who have evidently some stability of character, and whose conversation has in it the evidence of mature observation, combined with sound and virtuous principles, more than you do the flippant nonsense of mere ladies' men, or selfish, unprincipled fortune-hunters."
"Indeed, aunt, you are too severe on my favourites!" And Margaretta laughed gaily.
But to her aunt there was something sad in the sound of that laugh. It seemed like the knell of long and fondly cherished hopes.
"What do you think of Margaretta Riston, Mary?" asked Thomas Fielding of his sister, on the next evening after the visit just mentioned.
"Why do you ask so seriously, brother?" the sister said, looking into his face, with a smile playing about her lips.