"
"How could that be, my dear?" asked the husband; "in what would she be
better off for leaving her own property to her husband?"
"Why, by law, would she not? I don't exactly know how it would happen,
for I do not particularly understand these things; but it seems
natural that a woman would be a gainer if she made the man she was
about to marry her heir. She would have her thirds in his estate,
would she not?"
"But, Mrs. Brigham," said I, smiling, "is it quite certain
Mrs. Bradfort wishes to marry Rupert Hardinge, at all?"
"I know so little of the parties, that I cannot speak with certainty
in the matter, I admit, Captain Wallingford."
"Well, but Sarah, dear," interposed the more exacting Jane, "you are
making yourself unnecessarily ignorant. You very well know how
intimate we are with the Greenes, and they know the Winters perfectly
well, who are next-door neighbours to Mrs. Bradfort. I don't see how
you can say we haven't good means of being 'measurably'
well-informed."
Now, I happened to know through Grace and Lucy, that a disagreeable
old person, of the name of Greene did live next door to Mrs. Bradfort;
but, that the latter refused to visit her, firstly, because she did
not happen to like her, and secondly, because the two ladies belonged
to very different social circles; a sufficient excuse for not visiting
in town, even though the parties inhabited the same house.
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