In spite of my aunt’s cheerfulness, we were not so brisk a party at the dinner-table as we usually were. Conny complained of the heat, which, she said, always depressed her. For my part, I did not find it so very hot. The windows were wide open, and there was just enough air abroad to make the temperature of the atmosphere perfectly luxurious. However, Conny was in one of those moods which render grievances necessary conditions of life. “She is not _all_ sweetness!” I thought. But that discovery didn’t weaken my admiration. I was just of that age when a man will love a woman through everything, and for everything; through spleen and sauciness; for fickleness and flirtation; through bad grammar, and for gross relations; when he finds that everything she wears becomes her, that everything she says makes her more enchanting; when he mistakes temper for spirit, and many other things for many other things. I think, had my cousin stood on her head, I should have considered her posture the most graceful and becoming one in the world. My uncle, dyspeptic as usual, was, in spite of his sufferings, garrulous. The little flirtation my aunt had indulged him in, had put him into a thoroughly self-satisfied humour. Once more he got upon the subject of marriage, and dogmatised in a very inspiriting manner. However, it turned out that my aunt was not so amicably disposed as he imagined; for, on his happening to say, that a true woman, if she loved a man, would follow him into a garret, and be content to make her bed on a sand-floor, his wife confounded him, by crying out, “Nonsense! the true woman who will act in such a manner is a true fool! A man who is really fond of a woman, wouldn’t take her to a sand-floor; but, if he should offer to do so, the woman ought to refuse him, because his offer would be a sure sign that he didn’t love her as he ought.” “That is very good logic,” said I, approvingly. “But still,” I continued, “it is quite possible, and even reasonable, for a poor man to be devoted to a girl, to long to possess her, and to marry her without thinking of the poverty to which he will take her.” “More shame to him!” said my aunt, who now differed from me for the first time since I had known her. “True,” I answered, “but then he may hope, before long, to put her into a comfortable position.” “He ought to wait.” “He can’t,” interrupted my uncle. “You might as well expect a kettle not to boil after putting it on the fire.” “And there is another side of the question,” said I, “which ought to be considered--speaking for myself, I should seriously doubt a girl’s love for me if she refused to marry me, simply because I couldn’t put her into a good house.” “Mamma doesn’t understand love,” said Conny, querulously. “Mamma does,” replied my aunt, with a severe nod; “but papa doesn’t, and you don’t.” I looked at Conny just in time to catch sight of her little mouth twisted queerly at the corners.