“We must dream of everything, George. It is in dreamland I am going to live. Why is this gift of fancy bestowed upon us if not to conjure up allies that will help us to fight the stern evils of life? Without imagination, hope is a poor, weary, plodding foot-traveller, painfully lagging behind us. Give him but speculation, and he soars aloft on wings and rises towards heaven.”
“Do be reasonable, Julia, and let us decide what steps we shall take.”
“Let me just finish my boat-house; I 'm putting an aviary on the top of it. Well, don't look so pitifully; I am not going mad. Now, then, for the practical. We are to go over to Castello to-morrow, early, I suppose?”
“Yes; I should say in the morning, before Colonel Bramleigh goes into his study. After that he dislikes being disturbed. I mean to speak to him myself. You must address yourself to Marion.”
“The forlorn hope always falls to my share,” said she, poutingly.
“Why, you were the best friends in the world till a few days back!”
“You men can understand nothing of these things. You neither know the nice conditions nor the delicate reserves of young lady friendships; nor have you the slightest conception of how boundless we can be in admiration of each other in the imagined consciousness of something very superior in ourselves, and which makes all our love a very generous impulse. There is so much coarseness in male friendships, that you understand none of these subtle distinctions.”
“I was going to say, thank Heaven we don't.”
“You are grateful for very little, George. I assure you there is a great charm in these fine affinities, and remember, you men are not necessarily always rivals. Your roads in life are so numerous and so varied, that you need not jostle. We women have but one path, and one goal at the end of it; and there is no small generosity in the kindliness we extend to each other.”
They talked away late into the night of the future. Once or twice the thought flashed across Julia whether she ought not to tell of what had passed between Lord Culduff and herself. She was not quite sure but that George ought to hear it; but then a sense of delicacy restrained her—a delicacy that extended to that old man who had made her the offer of his hand, and who would not for worlds have it known that his offer had been rejected. “No,” thought she, “his secret shall be respected. As he deemed me worthy to be his wife, he shall know that so far as regards respect for his feelings he had not over-estimated me.”