a-land. They perform
before the priests in the pagodas; and the Brahmins and the Indian
princes marry them. Can we cry out against these poor creatures, or
against the custom of their country? It seems to me that young women
in our world are bred up in a way not very different. What they do they
scarcely know to be wrong. They are educated for the world, and taught
to display: their mothers will give them to the richest suitor, as they
themselves were given before. How can these think seriously, Arthur, of
souls to be saved, weak hearts to be kept out of temptation, prayers
to be uttered, and a better world to be held always in view, when the
vanities of this one are all their thought and scheme? Ethel's simple
talk made me smile sometimes, do you know, and her strenuous way of
imparting her discoveries. I thought of the shepherd boy who made a
watch, and found on taking it into the town how very many watches there
were, and how much better than his. But the poor child has had to make
hers for herself, such as it is; and, indeed, is employed now in
working on it. She told me very artlessly her little history, Arthur;
it affected me to hear her simple talk, and--and I blessed God for our
mother, my dear, and that my early days had had a better guide.

"You know that for a long time it was settled that she was to marry her
cousin, Lord Kew. She was bred to that notion from her earliest youth;
about which she spoke as we all can about our early days. They were
spent, she said, in the nursery and schoolroom for the most part. She
was allowed to come to her mother's dressing-room, and sometimes to see
more of her during the winter at Newcome. She describes her mother as
always the kindest of the kind: but from very early times the daughter
must have felt her own superiority, I think, though she does not speak
of it. You should see her at home now in their dreadful calamity. She
seems the only person of the house who keeps her head.

"She told very nicely and modestly how it was Lord Kew who parted from
her, not she who had dismissed him, as you know the Newcomes used to
say. I have heard that--oh--that man Sir Barnes say so myself. She says
humbly that her cousin Kew was a great deal too good for her; and so is
every one almost, she adds, poor thing!"

"Poor every one! Did you ask about him, Laura?" said Mr. Pendennis.

"No; I did not venture. She looked at me out of her downright eyes, and
went on with her little tale. '