“Nonsense, child—unfeeling, indeed! ay, ay, it may be so in your judgment, I dare say, but I must judge with the head, and not with the heart.”
“I think I ought to be allowed to judge for myself, now I’m of age,” answered Rose, with sudden spirit. “I was eighteen my last birthday.”
“True, Rose, you have had great experience of mankind, no doubt. But come, now, just tell me what you could have done if you had married Bob Selwyn, with no fortune yourself, and he nothing to depend on but his hands?”
“We could have done as other people do,” said Rose—“we could have worked. Have I not always worked at home, father?”
“To be sure you have. You have been a good, industrious girl, Rosy, that I sha’n’t deny; but your work at home was not like pulling continually at the rowing oar, which would have been your portion all your life, I’m afraid, with Robert. I can’t see, for my part, what you wanted to marry him for.”
“Because I loved him, and he loved me. Didn’t you and mother marry for love, father?”
Mr. Winters could not forbear laughing at this question, notwithstanding Rose’s grief—and his natural droll humor struggled with his former seriousness as he replied, “Well, I must try to remember. It is nearly twenty years ago, now—so long that you have come of age in the meanwhile, and fancy you are wiser than your father. But I can tell you one thing, Rose, if we did marry for love, we had something to begin the world with, which is quite as necessary. You know the old proverb, ‘When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.’”
“I don’t believe any such thing, father. Whoever wrote that proverb never knew what love was. It was a mean thing in any man to say so; and what would never have come from a woman, I’ll be bound.”
“Well, well, Rosy, you may dry your eyes. I wish I was as sure of a fortune for you, as I am that Robert will be back with the ship, if his life is spared; but if that shouldn’t be the case, you will be young enough then, and pretty enough, too, to get another beau.”
“I wont have any other!” exclaimed Rose. “I am determined to wait for him, if he stays twenty years!”—and with this resolution she hastily turned away and ran to her own room, where, secure from observation, she might give free vent to her full heart in a long fit of weeping.