She might have got it into her head that we were looking
down on her; and those insipid people are terribly stubborn.
We can come to some understanding with this one; I'm sure
of that." She ended by declaring that it was now their duty
to help Tom out of his terrible predicament.
"Oh, even the Lapham cloud has a silver lining," said Corey.
"In fact, it seems really to have all turned out for
the best, Anna; though it's rather curious to find you
the champion of the Lapham side, at last. Confess, now,
that the right girl has secretly been your choice all along,
and that while you sympathise with the wrong one,
you rejoice in the tenacity with which the right one is
clinging to her own!" He added with final seriousness,
"It's just that she should, and, so far as I understand
the case, I respect her for it."
"Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "It's natural, and it's right."
But she added, "I suppose they're glad of him on any terms."
"That is what I have been taught to believe," said her husband.
"When shall we see our daughter-in-law elect? I find
myself rather impatient to have that part of it over."
Mrs. Corey hesitated. "Tom thinks we had better not call,
just yet."
"She has told him of your terrible behaviour when you
called before?"
"No, Bromfield! She couldn't be so vulgar as that?"
"But anything short of it?"
XXI.
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