"But, dear cousin," said Phoebe, "if the young man is so dangerous, why
do you let him stay? If he does nothing worse, he may set the house on
fire!"
"Why, sometimes," answered Hepzibah, "I have seriously made it a
question, whether I ought not to send him away. But, with all his
oddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and has such a way of taking
hold of one's mind, that, without exactly liking him (for I don't know
enough of the young man), I should be sorry to lose sight of him
entirely. A woman clings to slight acquaintances when she lives so
much alone as I do."
"But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person!" remonstrated Phoebe, a part
of whose essence it was to keep within the limits of law.
"Oh!" said Hepzibah carelessly,--for, formal as she was, still, in her
life's experience, she had gnashed her teeth against human law,--"I
suppose he has a law of his own!"