"Unselfish? I don't call it unselfishness to sign yourself into a fortune," said Aunt Margret.
"But he had to take up the business, you know."
"Certainly he had--the best business in Iceland."
"Helga seems to think it is a little beneath him, Aunt Margret."
"It's good enough for Helga's father, and he made it. Besides, Oscar had nothing else, and an ugly sheep is better than no mutton."
"Oh, yes, he had his music, auntie, and Helga thinks that was a good deal."
"Does she, indeed? People who are naked needn't go about mending other people's clothes. Oscar's music wouldn't have brought him a penny of profit, and as for honor--what about Althing, and all the other things he couldn't have got without being rich?"
"So you don't think Oscar sacrificed himself very much when he signed the contract?"
"Sacrificed himself? Perhaps the boot was on the other leg, if you ask me."
Thora was happy for days after this interview, and while Oscar and Helga played their Wagner, she went about the house singing her little love ditties, and thinking of the time when Parliament would begin its session, and Oscar would throw himself into politics, and become Speaker, and perhaps Governor, and it would all come of having married her.