lowers in comparison?

Alas! she was poor, and could only afford a few miserable fuchsias to
decorate her drawing-room--or rather the better to exhibit its poverty!

If her poor, dear papa had been alive, things of course would have been
very different; and she could have had petunias, or orchids, or any of
the rarest hot-house flowers she pleased; but, now, she was poor,
although proud, and could not afford them like that rich parvenue.

How, good things always seemed given to those who are above their need!

There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married
also, she heard; while no suitor came forward for _her_ two poor orphan
girls!

Such was the staple of her conversation--enlivening, at any rate.

"Oh, ma!" exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; "you should not say
so to Mr Lorton! He'll think you wish him to propose at once!" and
both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea.

"So I would," said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as
melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words
seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there
weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. `How happy could I
be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.' But," I continued,
turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I
found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild
Irish girls, her daughters, "is it really true what you said just now
about Mrs Clyde's daughter, Lady Dasher?"

"Yes, Mr Lorton," she replied, "to the best of my belief it is; for, I
have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to
Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know."

"But that is no proof, ma," said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted
before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. "Mr
Mawley is always coming here, too!"

"True, my dear," said her mother; "still there are comings and comings.
You may depend he only goes there so often _for a purpose_! Indeed, I
asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday,
and she smiled and said nothing; and, if _that_ isn't proof," she
concluded, triumphantly, "I don't know _what_ is!"

Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, "I don't
believe it, ma--not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde's engagement.
Mr Mawley's going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for
Mrs Clyde,