"You are right, mamma. It seems to me that neither of us half appreciates papa. He works right on so quietly and steadily, and yet he is not a machine, but a man." "Oh, I appreciate him. Nine out of ten that he might have married would have made him no end of trouble. I don't make him any. Well, after talking about the people we used to know, Mr. Lanniere began a tirade against the times and the war, which he says have cost him a hundred thousand dollars; but he took care in a quiet way to let me know that he has a good many hundred thousands left. I declare, Marian, you might do a great deal worse." "Do you not think I might do a great deal better?" the young girl asked, with a frown. "I have no doubt you think so. Girls will be romantic. I was, myself; but as one goes on in life one finds that a million, more or less, is a very comfortable fact. Mr. Lanniere has a fine house in town, but he's a great traveller, and an habitue of the best hotels of this country and Europe. You could see the world with him on its golden side." "Well, mamma, I want a man,--not an habitue. What's more, I must be in love with the man, or he won't stand the ghost of a chance. So you see the prospects are that you will have me on your hands indefinitely. Mr. Lanniere, indeed! What should I be but a part of his possessions,--another expensive luxury in his luxurious life? I want a man like papa,--earnest, large-brained, and large-hearted,--who, instead of inveighing against the times, is absorbed in the vital questions of the day, and is doing his part to solve them rightly. I would like to take Mr. Lanniere into a military hospital or cemetery, and show him what the war has cost other men." "Why, Marian, how you talk!" "I wish I could make you know how I feel. It seems to me that one has only to think a little and look around in order to feel deeply. I read of an awful battle while coming up in the cars. We have been promised, all the spring, that Richmond would be taken, the war ended, and all go on serenely again; but it doesn't look like it." "What's the use of women distressing themselves with such things?" said Mrs. Vosburgh, irritably. "I can't bear to think of war and its horrors, except as they give spice to a story. Our whole trouble is a big political squabble, and you know I detest politics. It is just as Mr. Lanniere says,--if our people had only let slavery alone all would have gone on veil. The leaders on both sides will find out before the summer is over that they have gone too far and fast, and they had better settle their differences with words rather than blows. We shall all be shaking hands ana making up before Christmas." "Papa doesn't think so."