"And freckles to match: why, she's as old as"——; I felt myself on dangerous ground, and filled up the hiatus, I fear not very happily, by looking full at my aunt.
"Not so very old, indeed, my dear: she refused a very good offer last season: she cannot possibly be above"—
"Oh! spare the particulars, pray, my dear Ma'am; but you could not have seen the girl I mean: I don't think she staid after supper: I looked every where for her to ask who she was, but she must have been gone."
"Really! I wish I could help you," said my aunt with a very insinuating smile.
"Oh," said I, "what made me anxious to know who she was at the time, was simply that I saw her talking to an old friend of mine, whom you know something of, I believe; did you not meet Mr Ormiston somewhere last winter?"
"Mr Ormiston! oh, I saw him there last night! and now I know who you mean; it must have been Mary Russell, of course; she did wear pearls, and plain white muslin."
"Russell! what Russells are they?"
"Russell the banker's daughter; I suppose nobody knows how many thousands she'll have; but she is a very odd girl. Mr Ormiston is rather committed in that quarter, I fancy. Ah, he's a very gentlemanly man, certainly, and an old friend of the family; but that match would never do. Why, he must be ten years older than she is, in the first place, and hasn't a penny that I know of except his fellowship. No, no; she refused Sir John Maynard last winter, with a clear twelve thousand a-year; and angry enough her papa was about that, every body says, though he never contradicts her; but she never will venture upon such a silly thing as a match with Mr Ormiston."
"Won't she?" said I mechanically, not having had time to collect my thoughts exactly.
"To be sure she won't," replied my aunt rather sharply. It certainly struck me that Mary Russell, from what her brother had told me, was a person very likely to show some little disregard of any conventional notions of what was, or what was not desirable in the matter of matrimony; but at the same time I inclined to agree with my aunt, that it was not very probable she would become Mrs Ormiston; indeed, I doubted any very serious intentions on his part. Fellows of colleges are usually somewhat lavish of admiration and attentions; but, as many young ladies know, very difficult to bring to book. Ormiston was certainly not a man to be influenced by the fortune which the banker's daughter might reasonably be credited with; if any thing made the matter seem serious, it was that his opinion of the sex in general—as thrown out in an occasional hint or sarcasm—seemed to border on a supercilious contempt.