"So you are always saying, Maria," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "it's quite safe to say what you'll do when you haven't any, but it's very provoking to me. I only wish you had Ida and Eva to manage." "I only wish I had!" said Aunt Maria. "I should have had them both well married by this time. There shouldn't be any of this kind of nonsense that you allow. I'd set down my foot. I _wouldn't_ have it. My daughters _should_ obey me. You let them make a perfect nose-of-wax of you. They treat you in any way they please." "You always think so much of yourself, Maria, and whatever happens you turn round and blame me. I wish to mercy you'd _had_ children and then you'd see! People who haven't are always delighted with themselves and always criticising people who have. If you had a family of children to manage they'd soon bring you down." "Well, Nelly, you'll just see, you'll have a lot of old maids on your hands, that's all," said Aunt Maria. "Ida is a gone case now, and Eva is on the certain road. Girls that are so difficult and romantic and can't tell their own mind are sure to make old maids at last. There was Ellen Gilliflower, and Jane Seabright, they might both have had houses and horses and carriages of their own if they had taken offers when they could get them." "You know poor Jane lost her lover." "To be sure. Well, he was dead, wasn't he? and she couldn't marry him, but was that any reason why she never should marry anybody? There was John Smithson would have put her at the head of one of the best establishments about New York, and she might have had her own coupé and horses just as Mrs. Smithson does now. It's all this ridiculous idea about loving. Why, girls _can_ love anybody they'd a mind to, and if I had a daughter she _should_." "Oh! I don't know, Maria," said Mrs. Van Arsdel. "I think it is a pretty serious thing to force a daughter's affections." "Fiddlestick upon affections, Nelly, don't you begin to talk. It makes me perfectly sick to hear the twaddle about it. People in good circumstances always like each other well enough, and any girl can get along with any man that puts her in a good position and takes good care of her. If Ida had been _made_ to marry a good man when she first came out of school she never would have gone off at all these tangents, and she'd have been a contented woman, and so would Eva. She ought to be _made_ to marry Wat Sydney, it is a tempting of Providence to let the thing drag on so. Now, if Sydney was like Sim Rivington, I wouldn't say a word. I think Polly's conduct is perfectly abominable, and if Sim goes on getting drunk and raises a hell upon earth at home Polly may just have herself to thank for it, for she was told all about him. She did it with her eyes open, but Eva's case is different." At this moment the door-bell rung, and the waiter brought in a letter on a silver salver. Both ladies pounced upon it, and Aunt Maria saying, "It's to you, from Sydney," eagerly broke it open and began reading.