"You refuse to explain——"
"Well, well—I see you will compel me to speak. Well, madam, my meaning is very simple. When I say that it is too 'expensive' to unite oneself to a woman solely because that woman has for her portion a great fortune, a large income, every luxury and elegance to endow her husband with—I mean simply that if this woman be uncongenial, if her husband care nothing for her, only her fortune, then that he will necessarily be unhappy, and that unhappiness is cheaply bought with millions. Money only goes a certain way—tell me when it bought a heart! Mine, madam, it will never buy at least—if you will permit me to utter a sentence in such bad taste. And now let us abandon this discussion, which leads us into such serious moods."
She turned away, and looked through the window.
Two birds were playfully contending in the air, and filling the groves with their joyous carolling.
"How free they are!" she murmured.
"The birds? Yes, madam, they live in delightful liberty, as we of America will, I trust, some day."
"I wonder if they're married," said Philippa laughing, and refusing to enter upon the wrongs of England toward the colonies; "they are fighting, I believe, and thus I presume they are united in marriage—by some parson Crow!"
Mowbray only smiled slightly, and looked at his watch.
"What! not going!" cried Philippa.
"Pardon," he said; "I just rode out for an hour. We have a lecture in half an hour."