Some convention of their sex obliges them
to show her affection, to like or to seem to like her,
to take her to their intimacy, however odious she may
be to them. With the Coreys it was something more than
an affair of sentiment. They were by no means poor,
and they were not dependent money-wise upon Tom Corey;
but the mother had come, without knowing it, to rely upon
his sense, his advice in everything, and the sisters,
seeing him hitherto so indifferent to girls, had insensibly
grown to regard him as altogether their own till he
should be released, not by his marriage, but by theirs,
an event which had not approached with the lapse of time.
Some kinds of girls--they believed that they could readily
have chosen a kind--might have taken him without taking
him from them; but this generosity could not be hoped
for in such a girl as Miss Lapham.
"Perhaps," urged their mother, "it would not be so bad.
She seemed an affectionate little thing with her mother,
without a great deal of character though she was so capable
about some things."
"Oh, she'll be an affectionate little thing with Tom too,
you may be sure," said Nanny. "And that characterless
capability becomes the most in tense narrow-mindedness.
She'll think we were against her from the beginning."
"She has no cause for that," Lily interposed, "and we
shall not give her any.
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