‘For my part,’ Tom Dupuy put in brusquely, ‘I don’t hold at all with this sending young women from Trinidad across the water to get educated in England—not a bit of it. What’s the good of it?—that’s what I always want to know—what’s the good of it? What do they pick up there, I should like to hear, except a lot of trumpery fal-lal, that turns their heads, and fills them brimful of all sorts of romantic topsy-turvy notions? I’ve never been to England myself, thank goodness, and what’s more, I don’t ever want to go, that’s certain. But I’ve known lots of fellows that have been, and have spent no end of a heap of money over their education too, at one place or another—I don’t even know the names of ’em—and when they’ve come back, so far as I could see, they’ve never known a bit more about rum or sugar than other fellows that had never set foot for a single minute outside the island—no, nor for that matter, not so much either. Of course, it’s all very well for a person in your son’s position, Mr Hawthorn; that’s quite another matter. He’s gone to England, and he’s going to stay there. If I were he, I should do as he does. But what on earth can be the use of sending a girl in my cousin Nora’s station in life over to England, just on purpose to set her against her own flesh and blood and her own people? Why, it really passes my comprehension.’ Mr Dupuy’s forehead puckered slightly as Tom spoke, and the corners of his mouth twitched ominously; but he answered in a tone of affected nonchalance: ‘It’s a pity, Mr Hawthorn, that my nephew Tom should take this unfavourable view of an English education, because, you see, it’s our intention, as soon as my daughter Miss Dupuy arrives from England, to arrange a marriage at a very early date between himself and his cousin Nora. Pimento Valley, as you know, is entailed in the male line to my nephew Tom; and Orange Grove is in my own disposal, to leave, of course, to my only daughter. But Mr Tom Dupuy and I both think it would be a great pity that the family estates should be divided, and should in part pass out of the family; so we’ve arranged between us that Mr Tom is to marry my daughter Nora, and that Orange Grove and Pimento Valley are to pass together to them and to their children’s children.’ ‘An excellent arrangement,’ Mr Hawthorn put in, with a slight smile. ‘But suppose—just for argument’s sake—that Miss Dupuy were not to fall in with it?’