"Why not?"
"Choose Horace rather than Percival?"
"I should," said the old lady with smiling audacity. "And I would rather she did. Horace's position is better."
Mr. Thorne uttered something akin to a grunt, which might by courtesy be taken for a groan: "Oh, how mercenary you women are! Well, if you marry a man for his money, Horace has the best of it—if he behaves himself. Yes, I admit that—if he behaves himself"'
"And Horace is handsomer," said Mrs. Middleton with a smile.
"Pink-and-white prettiness!" scoffed Mr. Thorne.
"Nonsense!" The color mounted to the old lady's forehead, and she spoke sharply: "We didn't hear anything about that when he was a lad, and we were afraid of something amiss with his lungs: it would have been high treason to say a syllable against him then. And now, though I suppose he will always be a little delicate (you'd be sorry if you lost him, Godfrey), it's a shame to talk as if the boys were not to be compared. They are just of a height, not half an inch difference, and the one as brave and manly as the other. Horace is fair, and Percival is dark; and you know, as well as I do, that Horace is the handsomer."
Mr. Thorne shifted his ground: "If I were Sissy I would choose my husband for qualities that are rather more than skin-deep."
"By all means. And still I would choose Horace."
"What is amiss with Percival?"