"What you say's precisely why I wish he would cease his visits.

He has nothing in the world that I know of but a dozen or two of early masters and a more or less pert little daughter." "The early masters are now worth a good deal of money," said Madame Merle, "and the daughter's a very young and very innocent and very harmless person." "In other words she's an insipid little chit.

Is that what you mean?
Having no fortune she can't hope to marry as they marry here; so that Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a dowry." "Isabel probably wouldn't object to being kind to her.

I think she likes the poor child." "Another reason then for Mr.Osmond's stopping at home! Otherwise, a week hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her mission in life's to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself--and that, to prove it, she must first become one." "She would make a charming stepmother," smiled Madame Merle; "but I quite agree with you that she had better not decide upon her mission too hastily.

Changing the form of one's mission's almost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose: there they are, each, in the middle of one's face and one's character--one has to begin too far back.