ime, sapping all the noblest instincts of men
and women, and in rich people poisoning even parental affection,
making the mother thirst for the pleasures which in old days she
would only have tried to win for her child. She told me
stories--dreadful stories--about children with expectations of great
wealth who watched the poor grey hairs of those who gave them birth,
and counted the years and months and days that kept them from the
gold which modern society finds to be more precious than honour,
family, heroism, genius, and all that was held precious in less
materialised times. She told me a thousand other things of this kind,
and when I grew older she put into my hand what has been written on
the subject.'

'Good God! Has the narrow-minded tomfoolery got a literature?'

Winnie went on with her eloquent account of her aunt's doctrines, and
to my surprise I found that there actually _was_ a literature of the
subject.

Winnie's bright eyes had actually pored over old and long Chartist
tracts translated into Welsh, and books on the Christian Socialism of
Charles Kingsley, and pamphlets on more' recent kinds of Socialism.

As she went on I could not help murmuring now and then, 'What
surroundings for my Winnie!'

'And the result of all this was, Winnie, that your aunt asked you to
promise not to marry a man demoralised by privileges and made
contemptible by wealth.'

'That is what she wanted me to promise; but as I have said, I did
not. But I did promise to wait for a year and see what effect wealth
would have upon you.'

'Did your aunt not tell you also that the man who marries you can
never be unmanned by wealth, because he will know that everything he
can give is as dross when set against Winnie's love and Winnie's
beauty: Did she not also tell you that?'

'Love and beauty!' said Winnie. 'Even if a woman's beauty did not
depend for its existence upon the eyes that look upon it, I should
want to give more to my hero than love and beauty. I should want to
give him help in the battle of life, Henry. I should want to buckle
on his armour, and sharpen the point of his lance, and whet the edge
of his sword; a rich man's armour is bank-notes, and Winnie knows
nothing of such paper. His spear, I am told, is a bullion bar, and
Winnie's fingers scarcely know the touch of gold.'

'Then you agree, Winnie, with these strange views of your aunt?'

'I do partly agree with them now. Ever since I saw you to-day in the
churc