"He will be very entertaining," said Corey, "if you start
him on his paint. What was the disagreeable daughter
like? Shall you have her?"
"She's little and dark. We must have them all,"
Mrs. Corey sighed. "Then you don't think a dinner would do?"
"Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown Tom's
relation to them, whatever it is. We had much better
recognise it, and make the best of the inevitable.
I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful." He looked
at her with delicate irony in his voice and smile,
and she fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he
laughed outright. "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be
the best way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one.
He has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages which a
mother knows how to give her daughter in the family circle,
and with no means of comparing her with other girls.
You must invite several other very pretty girls."
"Do you really think so, Bromfield?" asked Mrs. Corey,
taking courage a little. "That might do," But her spirits
visibly sank again. "I don't know any other girl half
so pretty."
"Well, then, better bred."
"She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleasing."
"Well, more cultivated."
"Tom doesn't get on with such people."
"Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see."
"No, no"
"Then you'd better give the dinner to bring them together,
to promote the affair.
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