we know, when a gentlewoman is unwed,
'tis her misfortune rather than her fault'--and I do believe the poor
man thought he paid us women a compliment in so speaking. For me, I
felt it an insult."

"Why so, Mrs Dolly?"

"Why, think what it meant, my dear. `Of course, a woman cannot be so
insensible to the virtues and attractions of men that she should wish to
remain unwed; therefore, if this calamity overtake her, it shows that
she hath no virtues nor attractions herself.'"

"You don't think Mr Leighton meant that, Mrs Dolly?" asked Rhoda,
laughing.

"No, my dear; I think he did not see the meaning of his own words. But
tell me, if it is not a piece of great vanity on the part of men, that
while they never think to condole with a man who is unmarried, but take
it undoubted that he prefers that life, they take it as equally
undoubted that a woman doth not prefer it, and lament over her being
left at ease and liberty as though she had suffered some great
misfortune?"

"I never did see such queer notions as you have, Mrs Dolly! I can't
think where you get them," said Rhoda. "However, you may say what you
will; _I_ mean to marry, and I am going to be rich too. And I expect I
shall like both of them."

"My dear!" and Mrs Dorothy laid down her work, and looked earnestly at
Rhoda. "How do you know you are going to be rich?"

"Why, I shall have White-Ladies," answered Rhoda. "And of course Aunt
Harriet will leave me everything."

"Have Madam and Mrs Harriet told you so, my dear?"

"No," said Rhoda, rather impatiently. "But who else should they leave
it to?"

Mrs Dorothy let that part of the matter drop quietly.

"`They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,'" she said,
taking up her work again.

"What snare?" said Rhoda, bluntly.

"They get their hearts choked up," said the old lady.

"With what, Mrs Dolly?"

"`Cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life.' O my dear, may the
Lord make your heart soft! Yet I am afraid--I am very sore afraid, that
the only way of making some hearts soft is--to break them."

"Well, I don't want my heart breaking, thank you," laughed Rhoda; "and I
don't think anything would break it, unless I lost all my money, and was
left an old maid. O Mrs Dolly, I can't think how you bear it! To come
down, now, and live in one of these little houses, and have people
looking down on you, instead of looking up to you--if anything of the
sort would kill me, I think