It's impossible that you, who have so much now, can ever have been without any.' 'I hope,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders meekly, 'I have a little; I hope, a very little--Heaven knows! But to return to Ned; I have no doubt you thought, and therefore interfered benevolently in his behalf, that I objected to Miss Haredale.

How very natural! My dear madam, I object to him--to him--emphatically to Ned himself.' Mrs Varden was perfectly aghast at the disclosure.
'He has, if he honourably fulfils this solemn obligation of which I have told you--and he must be honourable, dear Mrs Varden, or he is no son of mine--a fortune within his reach.

He is of most expensive, ruinously expensive habits; and if, in a moment of caprice and wilfulness, he were to marry this young lady, and so deprive himself of the means of gratifying the tastes to which he has been so long accustomed, he would--my dear madam, he would break the gentle creature's heart.

Mrs Varden, my good lady, my dear soul, I put it to you--is such a sacrifice to be endured?
Is the female heart a thing to be trifled with in this way?
Ask your own, my dear madam.

Ask your own, I beseech you.' 'Truly,' thought Mrs Varden, 'this gentleman is a saint.