She dressed as
carefully to receive the painter as if he had been, to use her particular
phraseology, "a person in her own sphere;" and Mr. Tillott would have
thought his chances of success at a very low point, if he could have seen
her in Austin Lovel's presence.
That gentleman himself was not slow to perceive the impression he had made.
"It's rather a pity I'm married, isn't it, Clary?" he said to his sister
one day, when Sophia, whose habits had not been quite so methodical of
late, had gone in search of some white beads for the spaniels, some of
which were of a beady nature. "It would have been a great chance for me,
wouldn't it?"
What do you mean, Austin?"
"Miss Granger," answered the painter, without looking up from his work, "I
think she rather likes me, do you know; and I suppose her father will give
her fifty thousand or so when she marries, in spite of young Lovel. He
seems to have no end of money. It would have been an uncommonly good thing,
wouldn't it?"
"I don't think it's any use talking of it, Austin, however good it might
have been; and I don't think Sophia would have suited you as a wife."
"Not suited me--bosh! Any woman with fifty thousand pounds would have
suited me. However, you're right--there's no good in talking of _that_. I'm
booked. Poor little woman, she's a good wife to me; but it's rather a
pity. You don't know how many chances I might have had but for that
entanglement.
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