"And Paul," suggested the lady, with a peculiar smile.
"Well, when I say Paul, I mean myself. I've been called worse names than buzzard by people who were trying to walk off with my money. Oh, they didn't call me that to my face," said Silas, noticing a queer expression in the lady's eyes. "And people who should have known better have hated me because I didn't fling my money away after I had saved it."
"Well, you needn't worry about that," Mrs. Claiborne remarked. "You will have plenty of company in the money-grabbing business before long. I can see signs of it now, and every time I think of it I feel sorry for our young men, yes, and our young women, and the long generations that are to come after them. In the course of a very few years you will find your business to be more respectable than any of the professions. You remember how, before the war, we used to sneer at the Yankees for their money-making proclivities? Well, it won't be very long before we'll beat them at their own game; and then our politicians will thrive, for each and all of them will have their principles dictated by Shylock and his partners."
"Why, you talk as if you were a politician yourself. But why are you sorry for our young women?"
"That was a hasty remark. I am sorry for those who will grow weary and fall by the wayside. The majority of them, and the best of them, will make themselves useful in thousands of ways, and new industries will spring up for their benefit. They will become workers, and, being workers, they will be independent of the men, and finally begin to look down on them as they should."
"Well!" exclaimed Silas, and then he sat and gazed at the lady for the first time with admiration. "Where'd you learn all that?" he asked after awhile.
"Oh, I read the newspapers, and such books as I can lay my hands on, and I remember what I read. Didn't you notice that I recited my piece much as a school-boy would?"
"No, I didn't," replied Silas. "I do a good deal of reading myself, but all those ideas are new to me."
"Well, they'll be familiar to you just as soon as our people can look around and get their bearings. As for me, I propose to become an advanced woman, and go on the stage; there's nothing like being the first in the field. I always told my husband that if he died and left me without money, I proposed to earn my own living."
"You told your husband that? When did you tell him?" inquired Silas with some eagerness.