Rather exalt
yourself as more valuable to a miser than his whole lendings, and
greater than all your father's losses as an equivalent, and even then
putting your husband in debt, being so much richer than his account."
"Where will be my share of love in this world, married so?" asked Vesta.
"To love is the globe itself to a woman, her youth the mere atmosphere
thereof, her widowhood the perfume of that extinguished star; and all my
mind has been alert to discover the image I shall serve, the bright
youth ready for me, looking on one after another to see if it might be
he, and suddenly you hold between me and my faith a paper with my
father's obligations, and say: 'Here is your fate; this is your whole
romance; you are foreclosed upon!' How are you to take a withered heart
like that and find glad companionship in it? No, you will be
disappointed. It will recoil upon me that I sold myself."
"The image you waited for may have come," said Milburn undauntedly,
"even in me; for love often springs from an ambush, nor can you prepare
the heart for it like a field. I recollect a fable I read of a god
loving a woman, and he burst upon her in a shower of gold; and what was
that but a rich man's wooing? We get gold to equalize nobility in women;
beauty is luxurious, and demands adornment and a rich setting; the
richest man in Princess Anne is not good enough for you, and the mere
boys your mind has been filled with are more unworthy of being your
husband than the humble creditor of your father.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102