"I don't wonder your father said so," Mara remarked sternly.
"Well, I wonder, and I can't understand it," cried Ella, bursting into a passion of tears.
"There now, Ella," Mara began soothingly, "you will see all in the true light when you have had time to think it over. Remember how old Houghton is looked upon in this city. Consider his intense hostility to us."
"I've nothing to say for him," sobbed Ella.
"Well, it would be said that your father had permitted you to marry the son of this rich old extortioner for the sake of his money. Your action would throw discredit on all your father's life and devotion to a cause—"
"Which is dead as Julius Caesar," Ella interrupted.
"But which is as sacred to us," continued Mara very gravely, "as the memory of our loved and honored dead."
"I don't believe our loved and honored dead would wish useless unhappiness to continue indefinitely. What earthly good can ever result from this cherished bitterness and enmity? Oh, mamma, mamma! I wish you had lived, for you would have understood the love which forgives and heals the wounds of the past."
"Ella, can you have given your love to this alien and almost stranger?"
"I have at least given him my respect and admiration," she replied, rising and wiping her eyes before resuming her work. Suddenly she paused, and in a serio-comic attitude she pointed with the roller as she said, "Mara, suppose you insisted that that kitchen table was a cathedral, would it be a cathedral to me? No more so than that your indiscriminate prejudices against Northern people are grand, heroic, or based on truth. So there, now. I've got to unburden my feelings somewhere; although I expect sympathy from no one, I believe in the angels' song of 'Peace on earth and good will toward men.'"