She was subject to a sudden influx of ideas, and always fancied her
ideas inspirations. She looked at Clarissa, and repeated, with a meditative
air, "So _enormously_ rich!"
"There is a grown-up daughter, too," said Mr. Lovel; "rather a
stiff-looking young person. I suppose she is solid, too."
"She is not so charming as her father," replied Lady Laura, with whom that
favourite adjective served for everything in the way of praise. To her the
Pyramids and Niagara, a tropical thunderstorm, a mazourka by Chopin, and a
Parisian bonnet, were all alike charming. "I suppose solidity isn't so nice
in a girl," she went on, laughing; "but certainly Sophia Granger is not
such a favourite with me as her father is. I suppose she will make a
brilliant marriage, however, sooner or later, unattractive as she may be;
for she'll have a superb fortune,--unless, indeed, her father should take
it into his head to marry again."
"Scarcely likely that, I should think, after seventeen years of widowhood.
Why, Granger must be at least fifty." "My dear Mr. Lovel, I hope you are
not going to call that a great age."
"My dear Lady Laura, am I likely to do so, when my own fiftieth birthday
is an event of the past? But I shouldn't suppose Granger to be a marrying
man," he added meditatively; "such an idea has never occurred to me
in conjunction with him." And here he glanced ever so slightly at his
daughter.
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