"So I took the liberty to lay before you, my fair haranguer, if you recollect, when you made so many difficulties about carrying my knapsack."
"Ah! that was because it seemed so heartless, so cruel, to abandon my parents just when they wanted me so exceedingly. But what a debt of gratitude I owe to this dear Lettice for settling all these matters so admirably for me."
"I am glad you confess to a little of that debt, which I, on my part, feel to be enormous."
"I heartily wish there were any means of paying it. I wish I could make Lettice as happy as she has made all of us."
The young officer shook his handsome head.
"Mammas in our rank of life make such a point of endeavoring to settle their daughters—to start them in households of their own—where, if they are exposed to many troubles which they escape under their father's roof, they have many more interests and sources of happiness. But there is nobody to think of such matters as connegated with this poor fatherless and motherless girl."
"Mothers, even in your rank, my love, don't always succeed in accomplishing this momentous object. I don't see what possible chance there is for one in Lettice's condition—except the grand one, the effective one—in my opinion almost the only one, namely, the chapter of accidents."
"Ah! that chapter of accidents! It is a poor dependence."
"Nay, Catherine, that is not said with your usual piety."
"True—I am sorry—and yet, where another's happiness is concerned, one feels as if it were wrong to trust too much—even to Providence; with great reverence be it said—I mean, that in no given event can we exactly tell how much we are expected to use our own exertions, how much diligence on our part is required of us, in order to produce a happy result."