“You do not speak? Rose, Rose, you must see how wrong you would be to act so hastily. If it were a question of keeping or sending away a servant, nay, even a dog, you would give more thought to it; and this is a man who loves, who would make you happy. Oh, do not shake your head! How can a child of your age know? A man who, I am sure, would make you happy; a man who could give you everything and more than everything, Rose. I cannot let you decide without thought.” “Does one need to think?” said Rose, slowly, after a pause. “I do not care for him, I cannot care for him. You would not have me tell a lie?” “I would have you deny yourself,” cried her mother; “I would have you think of some higher rule than your own pleasure. Is that the best thing in the world, to please yourself? Oh, I could tell you stories of that! Why are we in this poor little house with nothing? why is my poor Bertie dependent upon my brother, and you girls forced to work like maid-servants, and our life all changed? Through self-indulgence, Rose. Oh! God forgive me for saying it, but I must tell the truth. Through choosing the pleasure of the moment rather than the duties that we cannot shake off; through deciding always to do what one liked rather than to do what was right. Here are eight of you children with your lives blighted, all that one might be pleasant and unburdened. I have suffered under it all my life. Not anything wrong, not anything wicked, but only, and always and before everything, what one liked one’s self.” Mrs. Damerel spoke with a passion which was very unlike her usual calm. The lines came into her brow which Rose remembered of old, but which the tranquillity of grief had smoothed out. A hot color mounted to her cheeks, making a line beneath her eyes. The girl was struck dumb by this sudden vehemence. Her reason was confused by the mingled truth and sophistry, which she felt without knowing how to disentangle them, and she was shocked and wounded by the implied blame thus cast upon him who had been of late the idol of her thoughts, and whom, if she had once timidly begun to form a judgment on him, she had long ceased to think of as anything but perfect. “Oh! stop, stop! don’t say any more!” she cried, clasping her hands.