This glorious sentiment seemed quite to remove suspicion.

’Aye, my dear, that is very sensibly said; and if we could but get a young heiress to Sanditon!  But heiresses are monstrous scarce!  I do not think we have had an heiress here, nor even a Co., since Sanditon has been a public place.  Families come after families, but, as far as I can learn, it is not one in a hundred of them that have any real property, landed or funded.  An income, perhaps, but no property.  Clergymen, may be, or lawyers from town, or half-pay officers, or widows with only a jointure; and what good can such people do to anybody?  Except just as they take our empty houses, and (between ourselves) I think they are great fools for not staying at home.  Now, if we could get a young heiress to be sent here for her health, and, as soon as she got well, have her fall in love with Sir Edward!  And Miss Esther must marry somebody of fortune, too.  She must get a rich husband.  Ah! young ladies that have no money are very much to be pitied.’  After a short pause:  ’If Miss Esther thinks to talk me into inviting them to come and stay at Sanditon House, she will find herself mistaken.  Matters are altered with me since last summer, you know:  I have Miss Clara with me now, which makes a great difference.  I should not choose to have my two housemaid’s time taken up all the morning in dusting out bedrooms.  They have Miss Clara’s room to put to rights, as well as mine, every day.  If they had hard work, they would want higher wages.’

Charlotte’s feelings were divided between amusement and indignation.  She kept her countenance, and kept a civil silence; but without attempting to listen any longer, and only conscious that Lady Denham was still talking in the same way, allowed her own thoughts to form themselves into such meditation as this:—­’She is thoroughly mean; I had no expectation of anything so bad.  Mr. Parker spoke too mildly of her.  He is too kind-hearted to see clearly, and their very connection misleads him.  He has persuaded her to engage in the same speculation, and because they have so far the same object in view, he fancies that she feels like him in other things; but she is very, very mean.  I can see no good in her.  Poor Miss Brereton!  And it makes everybody mean about her.  This poor Sir Edward and his sister! how far nature meant them to be respectable I cannot tell; but they are obliged to be mean in their servility to her; and I am mean, too, in giving her my attention with the appearance of coinciding with her.  Thus it is when rich people are sordid.’

Mr. Parker has two unmarried sisters of singular character.  They live together; Diana, the younger, always takes the lead, and the elder follows in the same track.  It is their pleasure to fancy themselves invalids to a degree and in a manner never experienced by others; but, from a state of exquisite pain and utter prostration, Diana Parker can always rise to be officious in the concerns of all her acquaintance, and to make incredible exertions where they are not wanted.