"Certainly, my love; you are always right, and it is wicked to grumble.
Still, if you saw what a hole it was,--past patching, I fear!"

"Look round," said Mr. Fielden, benevolently. "How we grieved for them
both; how wroth we were with William,--how sad for Susan! And now see
them; they will be the better man and wife for their trial."

"Has Susan then consented? I was almost afraid she never would consent.
How often have I been almost angry with her, poor lamb, when I have heard
her accuse herself of causing her sister's unhappiness, and declare with
sobs that she felt it a crime to think of William Mainwaring as a
husband."

"I trust I have reasoned her out of a morbid sensibility which, while it
could not have rendered Lucretia the happier, must have insured the
wretchedness of herself and William. But if Lucretia had not married,
and so forever closed the door on William's repentance (that is,
supposing he did repent), I believe poor Susan would rather have died of
a broken heart than have given her hand to Mainwaring."

"It was an odd marriage of that proud young lady's, after all," said Mrs.
Fielden,--"so much older than she; a foreigner, too!"

"But he is a very pleasant man, and they have known each other so long.
I did not, however, quite like a sort of cunning he showed, when I came
to reflect on it, in bringing Lucretia back to the house; it looks as if
he had laid a trap for her from the first."

"Ten thousand pounds,--a great catch for a foreigner!" observed Mrs.
Fielden, with the shrewd instinct of her sex; and then she added, in the