--Jim
has always been here, always the same. That won't do with a girl like
Princess. It is too commonplace, too devoid of interest and
uncertainty. Yes, my dear, I know that in your eyes this is folly, but
at the same time it is nature. You don't understand. Princess, I
fear, sets undue value on intellect, holding less brilliant endowments
cheap beside it. And we must admit, Berkeley, dearly as we love Jim
Byrd, and noble fellow as he is, he has not the intellectual power
which commands admiration. With all my respect for intellect, I can
see that Princess greatly overrates it. She has often declared that
unless a man were intellectually her superior, she could never love
him."

"Intellectually--a fiddle-stick!" scoffed Berkeley, contemptously.
"She don't know what she wants, or what is good for her. Women rarely
do. They make their matrimonial selections like the blindest of bats,
the most egregious of fools, and then, when the mischief is done, go in
for unending sackcloth, or a divorce court. Pocahontas will get hold
of a fellow some day who will wring her heart--with her rubbishing
longing after novelty and intellect, and fine scorn of homespun truth
and loyalty. Were I a woman, I should esteem the size of my husband's
heart, and the sweetness of his temper, matter of more importance than
the bigness of his brain, or the freshness of the acquaintance."

"Very true, my son," assented Mrs. Mason, gently, "but you are
powerless to alter women. Their hearts must go as nature wills, and
lookers-on can only pray God to guide them rightly. But, Berkeley, you
are unjust to your sister. Pocahontas has sound discrimination, and a
very clear judgment. Her inability to meet our wishes is no proof that
her choice will fall unworthily."

Berkeley made no response in words, but he looked unconvinced, and soon
withdrew to attend to the plantation, indulging in profound conclusions
about women, which were most of them erroneous.

In the afternoon Pocahontas, providing herself with a book and a gayly
colored feather fan, established herself comfortably in the old
split-bottomed rocking-chair in the deep shadow of the porch. The day
had been close and sultry, and even the darkened rooms felt stifling;
outside it was better, although the morning freshness had evaporated,
and that of evening had not yet come. The sun sank slowly westward,
sending long rays across the bosom of the river, whose waters were so
still