Why, child,
it is the making of you to be here! If I were as rich as--as that fellow
Granger, for instance; confound Croesus!--I couldn't give you a better
chance. You must stay here as long as that good-natured Lady Laura likes
to have you; and I hope you'll have booked a rich husband before you come
home. I shall be very much disappointed if you haven't."
"I wish you would not talk in that way, papa; nothing would ever induce me
to marry for money."
"_For_ money; no, I suppose not," replied Mr. Lovel testily; "but you might
marry a man _with_ money. There's no reason that a rich man should be
inferior to the rest of his species. I don't find anything so remarkably
agreeable in poor men."
"I am not likely to marry foolishly, papa, or to offend you in that way,"
Clarissa answered with a kind of quiet firmness, which her father inwardly
execrated as "infernal obstinacy;" "but no money in the world would be the
faintest temptation to me."
"Humph! Wait till some Yorkshire squire offers you a thousand a year
pin-money; you'll change your tone then, I should hope. Have you seen
anything of that fellow Granger, by the way?"
"I have seen a good deal of Mr. and Miss Granger, papa. They have been
staying here for a fortnight, and are here now."
"You don't say so! Then I shall be linked into an intimacy with the fellow.
Well, it is best to be neighbourly, perhaps. And how do you like Mr.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219