That life is care and trouble and untowardness?
Prit, Cow! This is no time for idleness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems.
Get up and moo! Tear round and quit thy dreams!'"

By this time Dorothea was asleep. Her book slid to the floor, I shaded
her face with my green umbrella, pulled down her muslin frock over her
pretty ankles, and gave myself up to vagrant thoughts of her probable
future.

Sunday on shipboard is a good day for reflections and heart-searchings.
My own problem, after all, is not so baffling as Dolly's. She is as
loyal as a charming and sensible girl can be to a mother like Mrs.
Valentine, whose soul, if the truth were told, is about the size of a
mustard-seed. A frivolous, useless, bird-minded woman is Dolly's
mother; a woman pecking at life as a canary pecks at its cuttlefish,
simply to sharpen its bill. How the girl can respect her I cannot
imagine! I suppose flesh calls to flesh and she loves her without too
much analysis, but they seem to have come to the parting of the ways.
It is Dolly's highest self that is in love with Marmaduke Hogg, and I
don't believe she will sacrifice it to a maternal whim and call it
filial obedience. Perhaps the absence that makes the heart grow
fonder is working like a philter in this journey planned by Mrs.
Valentine with a far different purpose.

"Let her go with you, Charlotte," she begged me with tears in her
eyes. "I must get her away from this attractive but undesirable young
man! That absurd uncle who didn't want his name to die out must have
been a lunatic or an imbecile. Why shouldn't such a vulgar name become
extinct? And to think that my exquisite Dorothea--whose figure and
eyelashes have been remarked by royalty--to think that she should be
expected to graft herself on to that family tree of all others! To
think that she may take that name herself and, for aught we know, add
half a dozen more to the list; all boys, probably, who would marry in
course of time and produce others, piling Hoggs on Hoggs, as it were!
It is like one of those horrible endless chains that are condemned by
the government!"

I gave way to peals of laughter at this impassioned speech, evidently
annoying Mrs. Valentine, who expected sympathy. I tried to placate her
with reference to the poet of the name which had none but delightful
associations in Scotland.

"Then if they choose to defy me and marry each other, let them go and
live