Villiers did not appear to heed her remark, but continued the train of his own reflections. "The first desire of man is not for wealth nor luxury, but for sympathy and applause. He desires to remove to the furthest extremity of the world contempt and degradation; and according to the ideas of the society in which he is bred, so are his desires fashioned. We, the most civilized, high-bred, prosperous people in the world, make no account of nature, unless we add the ideas of possession, and of the labours of man. We rate each individual, (and we all desire to be rated as individuals, distinct from and superior to the mass,) not by himself, but by his house, his park, his income. This is a trite observation, yet it appears new when it comes home: what is lower, humbler, more despicable than a poor man? Give him learning, give him goodness--see him with manners acquired in poverty, habits dyed in the dusky hues of penury; and if we do not despise him, yet we do not admit him to our tables or society. Refinement may only be the varnish of the picture, yet it is necessary to make apparent to the vulgar eye even the beauties of Raphael." "To the vulgar eye!" repeated Ethel, emphatically. "And I seem one of those, by the way I speak," said Edward, smiling. "Yet, indeed, I do not despise any man for being poor, except myself. I can feel pride in showing honour where honour is due, even though clad in the uncouth and forbidding garb of plebeianism; but I cannot claim this for myself--I cannot demand the justice of men, which they would nickname pity. The Illinois would be preferable far." "And the Illinois might be a paradise," said Ethel. "We hope for a better--we hope for Italy. Do you remember Rome and the Coliseum, my love?--Naples, the Chiaja, and San Carlo?--these were better than the savannas of the west. Our hopes are good; it is the present only which is so thorny, so worse than barren: like the souls of Dante, we have a fiery pass to get through before we reach our place of bliss; that we have it in prospect will gift us with fortitude. Meanwhile I must string myself to my task. Ethel, dearest, I shall go to town to-morrow." "And I with you, surely?" "Do not ask it; this is your first lesson in the lore you were so ready to learn, of bearing all for me--" "With you," interrupted his wife. "With me--it shall soon be," replied Edward; "but to speak according to the ways of this world, my presence in London is necessary for a few days--for a very few days; a journey there and back for me is nothing, but it would be a real and useless expense if you went. Indeed, Ethel, you must submit to my going without you--I ask it of you, and you will not refuse." "A few days, you say," answered Ethel--"a very few days? It is hard. But you will not be angry, if I should join you if your return is delayed?"