“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the other, impatiently; “when a thing has been said once, one is held to it forever, in this unintelligent way. You never consider how unlike one case is to another, or take the circumstances into account. Besides, all I said referred to a sentiment already formed. I would never tear two young people asunder that were fond of each other, because one was rich and the other poor; that is a thing I could never be guilty of. But this is a very different matter. To take care that a girl like Lucy Trevor does not make a foolish choice, or even,” said Mrs. Stone, with a certain solemnity and deliberateness of utterance, “to direct her thoughts to some one eminently suitable--” Miss Southwood looked at her with eager eyes. After the manner in which her suggestion had been received at their former interview, she did not venture to repeat it; but she knew by experience that a suggestion is sometimes very badly received to-day, and accepted, as a matter of course, or even energetically acted upon, to-morrow; so she said nothing, but with eager though concealed scrutiny watched her sister’s looks. Finding, however, that Mrs. Stone said nothing more, but pensively eat her chicken, she resumed, after awhile, her inquiries. “I suppose Mr. Trevor has been consulting you,” she said, “and I am sure it was the very best thing he could do. But, after all, Lucy is only seventeen, poor little thing! and a good girl, with no nonsense about her. Does he want to marry her off so young, the poor child?” “I think,” said Mrs. Stone, reflectively, turning her chair to the fire, “he does not want her to marry at all.” “Oh!” cried Miss Southwood in dismay. She had not married herself, she professed at once, when the subject was mentioned, her entire incompetence to give any opinion; but the idea that a girl’s friends should wish her _not_ to many filled her mind with amazement beyond words. The _naïveté_ of her conviction on this point betrayed itself in her unfeigned wonder. She could not believe it. “I suppose,” she said, “that he wants to keep the money in the family; and that means that he will marry her to her cousin, that young man, that Mr. Rainy.” “Her cousin! you mean the certificated school-master, the Dissenter.” “Oh, he is not a Dissenter; we met him at the rectory; he is a very rising young man, and clever, and--” “You may save yourself, the trouble of enumerating his good qualities. I can’t tell how you know them; but Lucy shall never marry the school-master. I will refuse my consent.” “You will refuse your consent? and what will that matter?” Miss Southwood said.