"
This she said without looking at Emily, and in a matter-of-fact tone. If
one had discovered anything, and the other was aware of it, she could
still here at least feel perfectly safe. This sister of hers, even to
her own husband, would never speak.
"And that was all?"
"No; Giles said he gave him various ludicrous particulars, and repeated,
with such a sincere sigh, 'I must marry--it's a dire necessity!' that
Giles laughed, and so did he."
"Poor John!" said Emily, "there certainly was not much in his first
marriage to tempt him into a second. And so I suppose Giles encouraged
him, saying, as he often does, that he had never known any happiness
worth mentioning till he married."
"Yes, dear," said Dorothea, "and he answered, 'But you did not pitch
yourself into matrimony like a man taking a header into a fathomless
pool. You were in love, old fellow, and I am not. Why, I have not
decided yet on the lady!' He cannot mean, therefore, to marry forthwith,
Emily; besides, it must be the literal truth that he has not even half
unconsciously a real preference for any one, or he could not have talked
so openly to Giles.
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