“In what?”
“Why, have you not heard the news of the engagement of Maria with Henry Dawson?”
“No, I have not before. But when did it occur, and are you positive it is so?”
“As to the when, sometime within a day or two; and as to the positive, the lady herself is my authority.”
“She is certainly very fortunate with her daughters.”
“So she thinks, at least this time. But I am not clear that the three former connections with Law, Physic and Divinity were exactly to her mind.”
“Certainly no three men occupy more respectable positions for their age in the community than her three sons-in-law, and as she had no fortune to give with her daughters, she should be thankful.”
“I imagine few will be inclined to differ from you; but that very want of fortune causes her to be peculiarly alive to its advantages, and hence her delight at her daughter’s engagement to young Dawson.”
“Is he so very rich?”
“Not having any marriageable daughters of my own to dispose of, I never asked him for a schedule of his effects. But I supposed you to have been well posted on that point.”