'What on earth are we to do with them?' said Sophia, the eldest Miss Longestaffe, to her mother.
'I do think it's a shame of papa,' said Georgiana, the second daughter. 'I certainly shan't trouble myself to entertain them.'
'Of course you will leave them all on my hands,' said Lady Pomona wearily.
'But what's the use of having them?' urged Sophia. 'I can understand going to a crush at their house in town when everybody else goes. One doesn't speak to them, and need not know them afterwards. As to the girl, I'm sure I shouldn't remember her if I were to see her.'
'It would be a fine thing if Adolphus would marry her,' said Lady Pomona.
'Dolly will never marry anybody,' said Georgiana. 'The idea of his taking the trouble of asking a girl to have him! Besides, he won't come down to Caversham; cart-ropes wouldn't bring him. If that is to be the game, mamma, it is quite hopeless.'
'Why should Dolly marry such a creature as that?' asked Sophia.
'Because everybody wants money,' said Lady Pomona. 'I'm sure I don't know what your papa is to do, or how it is that there never is any money for anything, I don't spend it.'
'I don't think that we do anything out of the way,' said Sophia. 'I haven't the slightest idea what papa's income is; but if we're to live at all, I don't know how we are to make a change.'
'It's always been like this ever since I can remember,' said Georgiana, 'and I don't mean to worry about it any more. I suppose it's just the same with other people, only one doesn't know it.'
'But, my dears--when we are obliged to have such people as these Melmottes!'
'As for that, if we didn't have them somebody else would. I shan't trouble myself about them, I suppose it will only be for two days.'
'My dear, they're coming for a week!'
'Then papa must take them about the country, that's all. I never did hear of anything so absurd. What good can they do papa by being down there?'
'He is wonderfully rich,' said Lady Pomona.
'But I don't suppose he'll give papa his money,' continued Georgiana. 'Of course I don't pretend to understand, but I think there is more fuss about these things than they deserve. If papa hasn't got money to live at home, why doesn't he go abroad for a year? The Sidney Beauchamps did that, and the girls had quite a nice time of it in Florence. It was there that Clara Beauchamp met young Lord Liffey. I shouldn't at all mind that kind of thing, but I think it quite horrible to have these sort of people brought down upon us at Caversham. No one knows who they are, or where they came from, or what they'll turn to.' So spoke Georgiana, who among the Longestaffes was supposed to have the strongest head, and certainly the sharpest tongue.