Read it through once

Mrs. Hofland was an extremely pious woman, and she was also something of a busybody, though possibly one whose interest in the affairs of others was never unpleasant enough to cause trouble. Hearing of the Elford correspondence, she twitted Miss Mitford with having matrimonial designs in that quarter, which drew from the latter the clever retort: “The man is too wise; he has an outrageous fancy for my letters (no great proof of wisdom that, you’ll say), and marrying a favourite correspondent would be something like killing the goose with the golden eggs.”