“A very clever man is the commissioner in his way,” said Lady Jane, “but nothing to his wife. I can assure you, Mrs. Falconer is particularly well worth your knowing; for unless maternal rivalship should interfere, I know few people in the world who could be more useful to your girls when you _bring them out_. She has a vast deal of address. And for a proof, as I was going to point out to you, there are the Miss Falconers in the first circles--asked every where--yet without fortunes, and with no pretensions beyond, or equal to, what your daughters have--not with half Rosamond’s wit and information--nothing comparable in point of beauty and accomplishments, to Caroline; yet how they have _got on_! See what fashion can do! Come, come, we must court her patronage--leave that to me: I assure you I understand the ways and means.” “I have no doubt of that,” said Mr. Percy. “All that your ladyship has said is excellent sense, and incontrovertible as far as--” “Oh! I knew you would think so: I knew we should understand one another as soon as you had heard all I had to say.” “Excellent sense, and incontrovertible, as far as it relates to the means, but perhaps we may not agree as to the ends; and if these are different, you know your means, though the best adapted for gaining your objects, may be quite useless or unfit for the attainment of mine.” “At once, then, we can’t differ as to our objects, for it is my object to see your daughters happily married; now tell me,” said Lady Jane, appealing alternately to Mr. and Mrs. Percy, “honestly tell me, is not this your object--and yours?” “Honestly, it is,” said Mr. and Mrs. Percy. “That’s right--I knew we must agree there.” “But,” said Mrs. Percy, “allow me to ask what you mean by happily married?” “What do I mean? Just what you mean--what every body means at the bottom of their hearts: in the first place married to men who have some fortune.” “What does your ladyship mean by _some_ fortune?” “Why--you have such a strange way of not understanding! We who live in the world must speak as the world speaks--we cannot recur continually to a philosophical dictionary, and if we had recourse to it, we should only be sent from _a_ to _z_, and from _z_ back again to _a_; see _affluence_, see _competence_, see _luxury_, see _philosophy_, and see at last that you see nothing, and that you knew as much before you opened the book as when you shut it--which indeed is what I find to be the case with most books I read.” Triumphant from the consciousness of having hitherto had all the wit on her side, Lady Jane looked round, and continued: “Though I don’t pretend to draw my maxims from books, yet this much I do know, that in matrimony, let people have ever so much sense, and merit, and love, and all that, they must have bread and butter into the bargain, or it won’t do.” “Certainly,” said Mrs. Percy: “under that head I suppose you include all the necessaries of life.”