Just leave
her to herself and let her feel what she's doing. Think what
Chowton Farm would be, and you with your business all slipping
through your fingers."
"I don't know that it's slipping through my fingers at all," said
the attorney mindful of his recent successes.
"If you mean to say you don't care about it--!"
"I do care about it very much. You know I do. You ought not to talk
to me in that way."
"Then why won't you be said by me? Of course if you cocker her up,
she'll think she's to have her own way like a grand lady. She don't
like him because he works for his bread,--that's what it is; and
because she's been taught by that old woman to read poetry. I never
knew that stuff do any good to anybody. I hate them fandangled
lines that are all cut up short to make pretence. If she wants to
read why can't she take the cookery book and learn something
useful? It just comes to this;--if you want her to marry Larry
Twentyman you had better not notice her for the next fortnight. Let
her go and come and say nothing to her. She'll think about it, if
she's left to herself."
The attorney did want his daughter to marry the man and was half
convinced by his wife. He could not bring himself to be cruel and
felt that his heart would bleed every hour of the day that he
separated himself from his girl;--but still he thought that he
might perhaps best in this way bring about a result which would be
so manifestly for her advantage.
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