“You’re a very sensible girl, Eliza,” said Mrs. Rexford, with quick vigour and without any sense of contrast.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” went on Eliza, “for I don’t answer him more than I can help; but if he was to talk to the other girls when they go out, I suppose they’d know not to notice him too much.”

Mrs. Rexford was one of those people who get accustomed to circumstances in the time that it takes others to begin to wonder at them.  She often took for granted now that Eliza would consider her daughters as, entirely on a level with herself, but less sensible.  It might not be wholly agreeable; neither, to Mrs. Rexford’s mind, was it agreeable to have the earth covered with snow for four months of the year; but she had ceased wondering at that phenomenon a minute after she had first read of it in a book of travels, and all the ever-fresh marvel of its glossy brightness had, failed to bring fresh comment to her lips, or to make her mind more familiar with the idea.  In the same way, she had accepted Eliza’s position and character as a complex fact which, like the winter, had advantages and disadvantages.  Mrs. Rexford put up with the latter, was thankful for the former, and wasted no more thoughts on the matter.

Eliza’s last remark, however, was a subject for consideration, and with Mrs. Rexford consideration was speech.

“Dear me!” she said.  “Well!” Then she took a few paces backward, dish-cloth and dish still in hand, till she brought herself opposite the next room door.  The long kitchen was rather dark, as the plates were being washed by the light of one candle, but in the next room Captain Rexford and his family were gathered round a table upon which stood lamps giving plenty of light.

The mother addressed the family in general.  “The dentist,” said she, “talks to Eliza when she goes to the shop.  Blue and Red! if he should speak to you, you must show the same sense Eliza did, and take not the slightest notice.”

Sophia had asked what the dentist said to Eliza, and Mrs. Rexford had reproved the girls for laughing, while the head of the family prepared himself to answer in his kindly, leisurely, and important way.

“To ‘take not the slightest notice’ is, perhaps, requiring more of such young heads than might be possible.  It would be difficult even for me to take no notice whatever of a young man who accosted me in a place like this.  Severity, mild displeasure, or a determination not to speak, might be shown.”

“If necessary,” said Sophia; “but—­”

“If necessary,” the father corrected himself, emphasizing his words with a gentle tap of his fingers on the table.  “I only mean if necessary, of course.”

“People have such easy-going ways here,” said Sophia.  “Don’t you think, mamma, a little ordinary discretion on the girls’ part would be enough?  Blue and Red have too much sense, I suppose, to treat him as an equal; but they can be polite.”