“A beautiful sentiment indeed!” said Mrs. Roberts, with a sniff of disgust; and she stood surveying her niece in silence for a minute or two. Then smothering her feelings a little, she asked her in a quieter voice, “And so, Helen, you are really going to fling aside the life opportunity that is yours for such nonsense as this? There is no other reason?”
“There is another reason, Aunt Polly,” said Helen; “it is so dreadful of you to ask me in that way. How CAN you have expected me to marry a man just because he was rich?”
“Oh,” said the other, “so that is it! And pray what put the idea into your head so suddenly?” She paused a moment, and then, as the girl did not raise her head, she went on, sarcastically, “I fancy I know pretty well where you got all of these wonderful new ideas; you have not been talking with Mr. Howard for nothing, I see.”
“No, not for nothing,” said Helen gently.
“A nice state of affairs!” continued the other angrily; “I knew pretty well that his head was full of nonsense, but when I asked him here I thought at least that he would know enough about good manners to mind his own affairs. So he has been talking to you, has he? And now you cannot possibly marry a rich man!”
Mrs. Roberts stopped, quite too angry to find any more words; but as she sat for a minute or two, gazing at Helen, it must have occurred to her that she would not accomplish anything in that way. She made an effort to swallow her emotions.
“Helen, dear,” she said, sitting down near her niece, “why will you worry me in this dreadful way, and make me speak so crossly to you? I cannot tell you, Helen, what a torment it is to me to see you throwing yourself away in this fashion; I implore you to stop and think before you take this step, for as sure as you are alive you will regret it all your days. Just think of it how you will feel, and how I will feel, when you look back at the happiness you might have had, and know that it is too late! And, Helen, it is due to nothing in the world but to your inexperience that you have let yourself be carried away by these sublimities. You MUST know, child, and you can see if you choose, that they have nothing to do with life; they will not butter your bread, Helen, or pay your coachman, and when you get over all this excitement, you will find that what I tell you is true. Look about you in the world, and where can you find anybody who lives according to such ideas?”
“What ideas do you mean, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, with a puzzled look.
“Oh, don't you suppose,” answered the other, “that I know perfectly well what kind of stuff it is that Mr. Howard has talked to you? I used to hear all that kind of thing when I was young, and I believed some of it, too,—about how beautiful it was to marry for love, and to have a fine scorn of wealth and all the rest of it; but it wasn't very long before I found out that such opinions were of no use in the world.”
“Then you don't believe in love, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, fixing her eyes on the other.