know.

"If you talk like that," said Anne Dorset to Sophy, "you will set her
little head afloat about good matches, and spoil her too."

"And a very good thing," said Sophy. "If you had put the idea into my
head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why shouldn't she think of a
good match? Can she live there for ever in that dreadful Parsonage,
among all those children whom she does not know how to manage? Don't be
absurd, Anne; except an elder daughter like you here and there, you
know, girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change what is the
course of nature, as papa says."

"Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly."

"Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because I am unmarried,
I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and no one finds any fault."

"Not all surely; not near _all_."

"Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever they write,
whenever they speak in public. When men are so mean, why should we train
girls up to unnatural high-mindedness? Why, that is the sort of girl who
ought to make a good marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody
'hooked' for her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and all
that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind."

Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head. It was all she
could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was beyond her power, and if it
had not been beyond her power, what would have been the good of it?
Sophy had a story which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been
romantic, and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before, she
had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the good living he
was waiting for in order to marry was not likely to come through Sir
Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed his serious doubt whether
they were likely to be happy together, and broke off the engagement. He
married somebody else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the
shame as she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly
indignant with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten long
ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot that Sophy had been
jilted, and she did not forget it herself, which was worse. Therefore
Miss Dorset attempted no argument with her sister. She shook her gentle
head, and said nothing. Anne was the elder sister born,