“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.”
“If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think.”
“She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her.”
“But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather’s death made her mistress of this fortune?”
“No--why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain _my_ affections, because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?”
“But there seems indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event.”
“A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If _she_ does not object to it, why should _we_?”
“_Her_ not objecting does not justify _him_. It only shows her being deficient in something herself--sense or feeling.”
“Well,” cried Elizabeth, “have it as you choose. _He_ shall be mercenary, and _she_ shall be foolish.”
“No, Lizzy, that is what I do _not_ choose. I should be sorry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire.”