Mr. Scarborough's Family by Anthony Trollope

Author:Anthony Trollope [Trollope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Inheritance and succession -- Fiction, Fathers and sons -- Fiction, Domestic fiction, Hertfordshire (England) -- Fiction
Published: 2004-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. JUNIPER.

Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,—as when she said that she would "stick a knife" into Mr. Barry,—still there was a seriousness in all she said which was more than grave. She was pathetic and melancholy. She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred. And she knew that it would be a good thing to be married,—if only the right man would come. The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same house with him to the end. The right man must be a preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. The right man must be strong-minded and masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded always for good. And where was she to find such a man as this? she who was only an attorney's daughter,—plain, too, and with many eccentricities. She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only man who came in her way was her father's partner, for whom, in regard to a share in the business, she might be desirable.

Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty. The two eldest girls she absolutely did hate, and their father. To hate the father, because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous sin. Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her. Their amusements, their literature, their clothes, their manners,—especially in regard to men,—their gestures and color, were distasteful to her. "They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery," said Dolly to her father. He had replied by telling her that she was nasty. "No; but, unfortunately, I cannot but see nastiness." Dolly herself was clean to fastidiousness. Take off her coarse frock, and there the well-dressed lady began. "Look at the heels of Sophie's boots! Give her a push, and she'd fall off her pins as though they were stilts. They're always asking to have a shoemaker's bill paid, and yet they won't wear stout boots." "I'll pay the man," she said to Amelia one day, "if you'll promise to wear what I'll buy you for the next six months." But Amelia had only turned up her nose. These were the relatives to whom it would become her duty to devote her life!

The next morning she started off to call in Bolsover Terrace with an intention, not to begin her duty, but to make a struggle at the adequate performance of it. She took with her some article of clothing intended for one of the younger children, but which the child herself was to complete. But when she entered the parlor she was astounded at finding that Mr.

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