o, Will?" said Winthrop looking up.

"To tell me why I should not marry Miss Haye or Miss
Cadwallader."

"You not knowing, yourself."

"Yes -- I don't," said Rufus.

Winthrop turned over a few leaves of his book and then spoke.

"You are stronger, not to lean on somebody else's strength.
You are more independent, not to lean at all. You are
honester, not to gain anything under false pretences. And you
are better to be yourself, Will Landholm, than the husband of
any heiress the sun shines upon, at such terms."

"What terms?"

"False pretences."

"What false pretences?"

"Asking the hand, when you only want the key that is in it.
Professing to give yourself, when in truth your purpose is to
give nothing that is not bought and paid for."

Rufus looked very grave and somewhat disturbed.

"That's a very hard characterizing of the matter, Governor,"
said he. "I don't think I deserve it."

"I hope you don't," said his brother.

Rufus began again to measure the little apartment with his
long steps.

"But this kind of thing is done every day, Winthrop."

"By whom?" said Winthrop.

"Why! -- by very good men; -- by everybody."

"Not by everybody."

"By what sort of people is it not done?"

"By you and me," said Winthrop smiling.

"You think then that a poor man should never marry a rich
woman?"

"Never, -- unless he can forget that she is rich and he poor."

Rufus walked for some time in silence.

"Well," he said, in a tone between dry and injured, -- "I am
going off to the West again, luckily; and I shall have no
opportunity for the present to disturb you by making false
pretences, of any sort."

"Is opportunity all that you lack?" said Winthrop looking up,
and with so simple an expression that Rufus quitted his walk
and his look together.

"Why did you never make trial for yourself, Winthrop?" he
said. "You have a remarkably fine chance; and fine opening
too, I should think. You are evidently very well received down
yonder."

"I have a theory of my own too, on the subject," said
Winthrop, -- "somewhat different from yours, but still enough
to work by."

"What's that?"

"I have no mind to marry any woman who is unwilling to be
obliged to me."

Rufus looked at his brother and at the fireplace awhile in
gravity.

"You are proud," he said at length.

"I must have come to it by living so high in the world," said
Winthrop.

"So high?" -- said Rufus.

"As near the sun as I can get. I