"It's abominable!" echoed John, with equal indignation, though the words "highest bidder" rung in his ears, as he thought of the fortune waiting for him, and the youth which would tell so strongly in the race against "old Parker," as he irreverently called the little man; for fifty seems a patriarchal age to four-and-twenty.
"I know that sort of thing is done every day, and thought quite right; but I am so old-fashioned it seems terrible to marry merely for a home. Yet I'm very tired of being poor, and I should like a taste of ease and pleasure while I can enjoy them," added Dolly, with a very natural longing for the bright and happy side of life.
"And I could give her all she wants," thought John, with the temptation getting stronger every minute. But he only said a little bitterly, "You'd better give in, if you want ease and pleasure, for money can buy any thing."
"No, it can't buy love, and that is better than all the splendor in the world," answered the girl, in a tone that thrilled her hearer to the heart. "What I call love seems to have gone out of fashion; and that is what troubles me; because, if there isn't any such thing, I may as well take the next best, and try to be contented. No one seems to value love for itself alone, to feel the need of it as much as light and air, to miss it when it goes, or try to earn and keep it as the most precious thing in the world. Money and position are every thing, and men work and women marry for these, as if they had no other hope or end; and I'm frightened at the things I see and hear in what is called society."
"Poor child, I don't wonder; but I assure you there is an ocean of love in the world, only it gets put out of sight in the rush, wasted on those who don't deserve it, or dammed up by adverse circumstances. It exists though, the real genuine article, waiting for a market. Do believe it, and wait for it, and I'm sure it will come in time."
John was so divided between a rash impulse to prove his point by a declaration then and there, and the conviction that it would be altogether premature, his metaphors got rather mixed, and he had to pull himself up abruptly. But Dolly thought it a beautiful speech, was glad to believe every word of it, and accepted this piece of advice with admirable docility.
"I'll wait, and meantime be looking about for the safe corner to run to when Aunt Maria gets tired of me, because I don't mean to go home again to be a burden." Then, as if anxious to slip away from a too interesting topic, she asked with a very winning expression of interest and good-will,—
"Now what can I do for you? I'm sure you have worries as well as I, and, though not very wise, perhaps I might advise in my turn."
"You are very good, but I couldn't think of troubling you;" and the young man looked both pleased and flurried by the girl's offer.
"We agreed to help one another, you remember; and I must do my part, or the bargain won't be a fair one. Tell me what the brown study was about, and I'll forgive the kick poor Tip got," persisted Dolly; for her feminine instinct told her that a heavy cloud of some sort had been lifted to let sunshine through for her.