"What kind of life, Mr. Stanbury?"
"The life that you were living,—going out, being admired, and having the rich and dainty all around you."
"I don't dislike people because they are rich," she said.
"No; nor do I; and I despise those who affect to dislike them. But all cannot be rich."
"Nor all dainty, as you choose to call them."
"But they who have once been dainty,—as I call them,—never like to divest themselves of their daintiness. You have been one of the dainty, Miss Rowley."
"Have I?"
"Certainly; I doubt whether you would be happy if you thought that your daintiness had departed from you."
"I hope, Mr. Stanbury, that nothing nice and pleasant has departed from me. If I have ever been dainty, dainty I hope I may remain. I will never, at any rate, give it up of my own accord." Why she said this, she could never explain to herself. She had certainly not intended to rebuff him when she had been saying it. But he spoke not a word to her further as they walked home, either of her mode of life or of his own.