She had better marry a fool and be done with it.

So why not an eligible and titled and good-natured fool ?" the old lady had written to Mrs.
Hewel, who was very far from understanding such reasoning, and wept resentfully over the letter.
Why should Lady Tintern snatch her only daughter away from her in order to marry her to a fool?
Mrs.Hewel was of opinion that a sensible young man like Peter would be a better match.

She supposed nobody would call Sir Peter Crewys of Barracombe a fool; and as for his being young, he was only a few months younger than Lord Avonwick, and Sarah would have just as pretty a title, even if her husband were only a baronet instead of a baron.

Thus she argued to herself, and wrote the gist of her argument to her aunt.

Why was Sarah to go hunting the highways and byways for titled fools, when there was Peter at her very door,--a young man she had known all her life, and one of the oldest families in Devon, and seven thousand acres of land only next week, when he would come of age, and could marry whomever he liked?
Though, of course, Sarah must not go against her aunt, who had promised to do so much for her, and given her so many beautiful things, whether young girls ought to wear jewellery or not.
This was the distracted letter which was bringing Lady Tintern to Hewelscourt.