'I believe,' she muttered to herself as she descended the stairs, 'that girl's a gowk! It's the Sangster blood in her, I suppose--a dull, literal-minded lot!--soft and sober! To think that a daughter of mine should need to be spoken to, as I have just been speaking to her! We were all more gleg than that on _my_ side of the house. I don't know whether to be more ashamed of being mother to sic a daw; or for the things I have been driven to say to her! They don't sound like the walk and conversation of a Christian woman! and yet the best of us are but flesh and blood. We must all eat and drink, wear clothes, live in houses, and, when we can, ride in coaches, marry and give in marriage, just like the people before the flood, though they were so bad; and we must strive our best to provide for our families unless we would deny the faith and be worse than infidels. Ah! there is Scripture for it! So glad I remembered that text! It saves one from feeling base and scheming. But one ought not to be driven to put doubtful sentiments into words. One should be helped out with them. 'Bear ye one another's burdens.' That seems an apt quotation and appropriate, if it had only come into Sophia's mind! But there's no use looking for that from _her_. She's a glaikit tawpie. Ah me! the trials of a discreet and conscientious mother are not light! I hope I may have strength to bear them.' And so, with a sigh, she went about her affairs. The texts had evangelicalized (if not evangelized) the mercenary schemes, and she was again rehabilitated in her own eyes as a righteous person. Sophia stood brushing out her hair and musing on her mother's precepts, as a dutiful daughter should. She had never before heard marrying discussed in this bare, hard fashion. Was she a Circassian slave at Constantinople, to be tricked out and submitted to the inspection of the rich man in this fashion? Once before, some few words had been said to her in a more guarded way, but, as she now perceived in the same spirit, when the coming of her brother and his friend had been first spoken of; but at that time they had been less heeded, or she had understood them less, and they had not then shocked her. Love and marriage were subjects which up to that time had only been mentioned in her hearing as something vague, mysterious and holy, which it did not become her to pry into. As for personal love experiences, she had none; and the subject of maidenly fancies had generally been referred to by her hard and practical mother with scorn and derision.