"I never encourage absurdity, Richard."

"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?"

"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, Richard. It
will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn't a
dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not touch
her nephew.

"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the last point of reason to
her.

Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable
old gentleman for her."

"What infamy!" mutters Richard.

"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a
hearty breakfast--We don't dance at weddings now, and very properly.
It's a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.--Is that his
regiment?" she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled
gardens. "Tush, tush, child! Master Ralph will recover, as--hem! others
have done. A little headache--you call it heartache--and up you rise
again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain of sense
forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be painful.. Girls
suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their heads are weaker,
and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like your father now?
Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so?"

Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently.