"I am fond of flowers," Clarissa answered, "but I really know nothing of
botany. I would always rather paint them than anatomise them."
"Indeed! Painting is a delightful occupation for a young lady. My daughter
sketches a little, but I cannot say that she has any remarkable talent that
way. She has been well taught, of course."
"You will find Miss Lovel quite a first-rate artist," said Lady Laura,
pleased to praise her favourite. "I really know no one of her age with such
a marked genius for art. Everybody observes it." And then, half afraid
that this praise might seem to depreciate Miss Granger, the good-natured
_chatelaine_ went on, "Your daughter illuminates, I daresay?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so, Lady Laura. I know that Sophia does some massy
kind of work involving the use of gums and colours. I have seen her engaged
in it sometimes. And there are scriptural texts on the walls of our
poor-schools which I conclude are her work. A young woman cannot have too
many pursuits. I like to see my daughter occupied."
"Miss Granger reads a good deal, I suppose, like Clarissa,' Lady Laura
hazarded.
"No, I cannot say that she does. My daughter's habits are active and
energetic rather than studious. Nor should I encourage her in giving
much time to literature, unless the works she read were of a very solid
character. I have never found anything great achieved by reading men of my
own acquaintance; and directly I hear that, a man is never so happy as in
his library, I put him down as a man whose life will be a failure.
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