rise to any very great honours! If he should ever be made a baronet!
`Lady Wentworth' sounds very well. That would be a noble thing,
indeed, for Henrietta! She would take place of me then, and Henrietta
would not dislike that. Sir Frederick and Lady Wentworth!
It would be but a new creation, however, and I never think much
of your new creations."

It suited Mary best to think Henrietta the one preferred
on the very account of Charles Hayter, whose pretensions she wished
to see put an end to. She looked down very decidedly upon the Hayters,
and thought it would be quite a misfortune to have the existing connection
between the families renewed--very sad for herself and her children.

"You know," said she, "I cannot think him at all a fit match for Henrietta;
and considering the alliances which the Musgroves have made,
she has no right to throw herself away. I do not think any young woman
has a right to make a choice that may be disagreeable and inconvenient
to the principal part of her family, and be giving bad connections
to those who have not been used to them. And, pray, who is Charles Hayter?
Nothing but a country curate. A most improper match for Miss Musgrove
of Uppercross."

Her husband, however, would not agree with her here; for besides having
a regard for his cousin, Charles Hayter was an eldest son,
and he saw things as an eldest son himself.

"Now you are talking nonsense, Mary," was therefore his answer.
"It would not be a great match for Henrietta, but Charles has
a very fair chance, through the Spicers, of getting something from
the Bishop in the course of a year or two; and you will please to remember,