if we stopped at that the human race would die out.
It's just the same with your bad lung. You're a great deal better than
you used to be. All you want is to lead a natural life. It is a great
deal more natural to marry a pretty young lady that you're in love with
than it is to remain single on false principles."

"I'm not in love with Isabel," said Ralph.

"You said just now that you would be if you didn't think it wrong. I
want to prove to you that it isn't wrong."

"It will only tire you, dear daddy," said Ralph, who marvelled at his
father's tenacity and at his finding strength to insist. "Then where
shall we all be?"

"Where shall you be if I don't provide for you? You won't have anything
to do with the bank, and you won't have me to take care of. You say
you've so many interests; but I can't make them out."

Ralph leaned back in his chair with folded arms; his eyes were fixed for
some time in meditation. At last, with the air of a man fairly mustering
courage, "I take a great interest in my cousin," he said, "but not the
sort of interest you desire. I shall not live many years; but I hope I
shall live long enough to see what she does with herself. She's entirely
independent of me; I can exercise very little influence upon her life.
But I should like to do something for her."

"What should you like to do?"

"I should like to put a little wind in her sails."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I should like to put it into her power to do some of the things she
wants. She wants to see the world for instance. I should like to put
money in her purse."

"Ah, I'm glad you've thought of that," said the old man. "But I've
thought of it too. I've left her a legacy--five thousand pounds."

"That's capital; it's very kind of you. But I should like to do a little
more."

Something of that veiled acuteness with which it had been on Daniel
Touchett's part the habit of a lifetime to listen to a financial
proposition still lingered in the face in which the invalid had not
obliterated the man of business. "I shall be happy to consider it," he
said softly.

"Isabel's poor then. My mother tells me that she has but a few hundred
dollars a year. I should like to make her rich."

"What do you mean by rich?"

"I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their
imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination."

"So have you, my son," said Mr. Touchett, listening very attentively but
a little confuse