Don't presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no
danger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is going to
India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that cousins will not fall in
love. If you begin with precautions, the affair will come in spite of them. One
must not undertake to act for Providence in these matters, which can no more be
held under the hand than a brood of chickens. The boys will have nothing, and
Gwendolen will have nothing. They can't marry. At the worst there would only be
a little crying, and you can't save boys and girls from that.«
    Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was the
comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, and would
have the energy to do it.
 

                                   Chapter IV

            »Gorgibus: - ... Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte et
            sacrée, et que c'est faire en honnêtes gens, que de débuter par là.
             Madelon: - Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un
            roman serait bientôt fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d'abord
            Cyrus épousait Mandane, et qu'Aronce de plain-pied fût marié à
            Clélie! ... Laissez-nous faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman, et
            n'en pressez pas tant la conclusion.«
                                              Molière: Les Précieuses Ridicules.
 
It would be a little hard to blame the Rector of Pennicote that in the course of
looking at things from every point of view, he looked at Gwendolen as a girl
likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he be expected to differ from
his contemporaries in this matter, and wish his niece a worse end of her
charming maidenhood than they would approve as the best possible? It is rather
to be set down to his credit that his feelings on the subject were entirely
good-natured. And in considering the relation of means to ends, it would have
been mere folly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic - to have
recommended that Gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda's in order
that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have insisted that since a
fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep herself out of the way. Mr.
Gascoigne's calculations were of the kind called rational, and he did not even
think of getting a too frisky horse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened