"When we consider too," said Lady Arden, "the great difficulty, the next to impossibility, of meeting with suitable establishments for girls of good family and small fortunes. They cannot marry wealthy men of low connexions--that would be disgracing their families; they cannot marry the younger sons of good families, as they too are of course poor; and the elder sons cannot marry them, for they want money to pay off their incumbrances; so that when a girl so situated chances to make a conquest of a man who can afford to marry her, she may be said to be unusually fortunate." To have escaped, she might have added, the saddest of all the _Dilemmas of Pride_. "Whatever sort of fellow the man may be," interrupted Willoughby, laughing. "That is not at all a fair inference," replied her ladyship. "We are of course taking it for granted that the gentleman is of unexceptionable character, agreeable, and, in short, all that a gentleman ought to be." "Which is, you will allow," persisted Willoughby, "taking a good deal for granted. The only thing you ladies seem determined not to take for granted is the fortune." "Luckily," observed Mrs. Dorothea, "there is nothing to take for granted in this case. Indeed," she added, drawing up, "I should not, as I said before, have introduced Mr. Cameron to my niece if he had not been in every way a desirable connexion." The immediate prospect of the title was now discussed, the uncle being eighty-six; the magnificence of the fine old place; the splendour of the town residence; the entertainments to be given; the equipages, the diamonds, and so forth: while at every pause Madeline was pronounced by her aunt a most fortunate girl, till vanity at length stirring within her, she began to think that she really was fortunate; and that she must, she supposed, be civil to her old beau the next time she saw him.