At this juncture the horses became so fidgety with standing in the glare of the sun that Lord Sandford stepped back, and the coach rolled upon its way. Lady Romaine waved her scented kerchief, and then routed her scent-bottle out of her reticule, and turning sharply upon her daughter, said,— "Why sit you ever like a stuffed owl, without so much as a word or a smile? I die for shame every time I take you out. What have I done to be punished with such a daughter? One would think you to be a changeling child, if you did not so favour the Adairs. How think you you will ever get wed, sitting gaping there like a farm-house wench, who is afraid to open her lips lest she should betray herself by her speech. You put me to shame, child; I could cry with mortification. What will the world say, save that I have an idiot for a daughter?" Geraldine knew not what to answer. As she listened to the fatuous and stilted talk which was fashionable in her mother’s world, with its senseless mythological allusions and high-flown extravagances, it often seemed to her that these gay dandies and dames were all playing at madmen together. Her tongue had never learned the trick of such talk. It perplexed and disgusted her, seeming trivial and childish when it was not improper or profane. She saw other young girls who listened eagerly, and as eagerly reproduced the flowery nonsense amongst themselves and their admirers; but it seemed impossible to her to do the like, and she listened in humble silence to her mother’s tirades, wondering whether there were something radically wrong about herself, or whether the absurdity and folly were in others. "But, madam," she said gently at the last, "why should I get me a husband so soon? My grandmother was against very early marriages, and as she lay dying she often warned me to make very careful choice ere I gave my hand in troth-plight. She said I must needs be certain of mine own heart, for that no more wretched life could exist for woman than when she was tied to a man she could not love or respect."