It was as necessary to her mind to have an opinion on all
topics, not exclusively masculine, that had come under her notice,
as for her to have a precisely marked place for every article of her
personal property: and her opinions were always principles, to be
unwaveringly acted on. They were firm, not because of their basis, but
because she held them with a tenacity inseparable from her mental
action. On all the duties and proprieties of life, from filial
behaviour to the arrangement of the evening toilette, pretty Nancy
Lammeter, by the time she was three-and-twenty, had her unalterable
little code, and had formed every one of her habits in strict
accordance with that code. She carried these decided judgments
within her in the most unobtrusive way: they rooted themselves in
her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago, we know,
she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, because 'it was right for
sisters to dress alike', and because 'she would do what was right if
she wore a gown dyed with cheese-colouring'. That was a trivial but
typical instance of the mode in which Nancy's life was regulated.
It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty egoistic
feeling, which had been the ground of Nancy's difficult resistance
to her husband's wish. To adopt a child, because children of your
own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of
Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out
well, and would be a curse to those who had wilfully and
rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they
were better without.
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