"I think nothing of fine clothes myself. Saint Peter warns us against braiding of hair and putting on of apparel; and when all's said and done it don't go as far as a good complexion, and we don't need any apostle to tell us that--we can see it for ourselves." "And as for cleverness, there ain't her like in all Mershire," continued Mrs. Bateson. "Bless you! cleverness never yet helped a woman in getting a husband, and never will; though if she's got enough of it, it may keep her from ever having one. I don't hold with cleverness in a woman myself; it has always ended in mischief, from the time when the woman ate a bit of the Tree of Knowledge, and there was such a to-do about it." "I wish she'd marry Mr. Christopher; he worships the very ground she walks on, and she couldn't find a better man if she swept out all the corners of the earth looking for one." "Well, at any rate, she knows all about him; that is something. I always say that men are the same as kittens--you should take 'em straight from their mothers, or else not take 'em at all; for, if you don't, you never know what bad habits they may have formed or what queer tricks they will be up to." "Maybe the manager's nephew ain't altogether the sort of husband you'd expect for a Farringdon," said Mrs. Bateson thoughtfully; "I don't deny that. But he's wonderful fond of her, Mr. Christopher is; and there's nothing like love for smoothing things over when the oven ain't properly heated, and the meat is done to a cinder on one side and all raw on the other. You find that out when you're married." "You find a good many things out when you're married, Mrs. Bateson, and one is that this world is a wilderness of care. But as for love, I don't rightly know much about it, since Hankey would always rather have had my sister Sarah than me, and only put up with me when she gave him the pass-by, being set on marrying one of the family. I'm sure, for my part, I wish Sarah had had him; though I've no call to say so, her always having been a good sister to me." "Well, love's a fine thing; take my word for it. It keeps the men from grumbling when nothing else will; except, of course, the grace of God," added Mrs. Bateson piously, "though even that don't always seem to have much effect, when things go wrong with their dinners." "That's because they haven't enough of it; they haven't much grace in their hearts, as a rule, haven't men, even the best of them; and the best of them don't often come my way. But as for Miss Elisabeth, she isn't a regular Farringdon, as you may say--not the real daughter of the works; and so she shouldn't take too much upon herself, expecting dukes and ironmasters and the like to come begging to her on their bended knees. She is only Miss Farringdon's adopted daughter, at best; and I don't hold with adopted children, I don't; I think it is better and more natural to be born of your own parents, like most folk are."