e was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the
mother felt,--as she was intended to feel it,--but to which she could
make no reply. It accused her of being too much concerned for her son
to feel any real affection for her daughter. 'You are ignorant of the
world, Hetta,' she said.

'I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate,'

'Do you think it is worse than others have suffered before you? In
what little you see around you do you think that girls are generally
able to marry the men upon whom they set their hearts?' She paused,
but Hetta made no answer to this. 'Marie Melmotte was as warmly
attached to your brother as you can be to Mr Montague.'

'Marie Melmotte!'

'She thinks as much of her feelings as you do of yours. The truth is
you are indulging a dream. You must wake from it, and shake yourself,
and find out that you, like others, have got to do the best you can for
yourself in order that you may live. The world at large has to eat dry
bread, and cannot get cakes and sweetmeats. A girl, when she thinks of
giving herself to a husband, has to remember this. If she has a
fortune of her own she can pick and choose, but if she have none she
must allow herself to be chosen.'

'Then a girl is to marry without stopping even to think whether she
likes the man or not?'

'She should teach herself to like the man, if the marriage be
suitable. I would not have you take a vicious man because he was rich,
or one known to be cruel and imperious. Your cousin Roger, you know--'

'Mamma,' said Hetta, getting up from her seat, 'you may as well believe
me. No earthly inducement shall ever make me marry my cousin Roger. It
is to me horrible that you should propose it to me when you know that
I love that other man with my whole heart.'

'How can you speak so of one who has treated you with the utmost
contumely?'

'I know nothing of any contumely. What reasons have I to be offended
because he has liked a woman whom he knew before he ever saw me? It
has been unfortunate, wretched, miserable; but I do not know that I
have any right whatever to be angry with Mr Paul Montague.' Having so
spoken she walked out of the room without waiting for a further reply.

It was all very sad to Lady Carbury. She perceived now that she had
driven her daughter to pronounce an absolution of Paul Montague's
sins, and that in this way she had lessened and loosened the barrier
which she had striven to construct between them. But that