"Still I can't help thinking that on the whole it is as fine a thing to be a martyr as to be a mayor," Paul remarked.
But Mr. Martin considered this remark irreverent.
"Mr. Martin is right," sighed the mistress of The Cedars, "though for my part, I desire for my one ewe lamb neither riches nor honour; I only ask that she may be wise and happy."
And then the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Alice, who blushed very becomingly on perceiving Paul; while Mrs. Martin—having noted the blush—was straightway plunged into a very maelstrom of maternal unrest, lest the one ewe lamb, for whom she desired neither riches nor honour, should seek happiness with the impecunious son of a minister of religion.
CHAPTER II.
Alice.
I will own you as my prince
In the sight of heaven,
For I've loved you ever since
I was six or seven.
In consequence of her daughter's incriminating blush, Mrs. Martin set herself to the not uncommon task of locking a stable door after the steed has been stolen. But it was too late. Alice loved Paul Seaton, and felt that to be with him and to hear his voice was ideal happiness. As for Paul, he liked his old playmate because she thought him infallible and because she was pleasant to look upon; but his time for love was not yet.
Men and women approach the great subject of love by such different roads. The normal woman begins her life by raising an altar to an unknown god, and dedicates it to the first handsome stranger who comes her way, as the niche over the shrine is generally what shop-keepers call "stock size". Worship is the leading motive of her existence: the particular idol whom she happens to adore is a mere matter of circumstance.
But with a man it is different. In his case the goddess appears prior to the altar; and it is only after he has met and fallen down before the one, that he recognizes the necessity of erecting the other.