"Be assured that we shall," replied Villiers; "and you will never again, I trust, behave so unjustly by me. There are certain things in which we must judge and act for ourselves, and the question of money transactions is one. I may suffer--and you, alas! may also, through poverty; though you have taken pains to persuade me, that you do not feel that struggles, which, for your sake chiefly, embitter my existence. Yet they are nothing in comparison with the loss of my independence--the sense of obligation--the knowledge that my kind friends can talk over my affairs, take me to task, and call me a burthen to them. Why am I as I am? I have friends and connexions who would readily assist me at this extremity, if I asked it, and I might turn their kind feelings into sterling gold if I would; but I have no desire to work this transmutation--I prefer their friendship." "Do you mean," inquired his wife, "that your friends would not love you the better for having been of service to you?" "If they could serve me without annoyance to themselves they might; but high in rank and wealthy as many of my relations are, there is not one among them, at least of those to whom I could have recourse, who do not dispose of their resources to the uttermost shilling, in their own way. I then come to interfere with and to disarrange their plans; at first, this might not be much--but presently they would weigh me against the gold I needed, and it might happen, that my scale would kick the beam. "I speak for myself not for others; I may be too proud, too sensitive--but so I am. Ever since I knew what pecuniary obligations were, I resolved to lay under such to no man, and this resolve was stronger than my love for you; judge therefore of its force, and the violence you do me, when you would oblige me to act against it. Did I begin to borrow, a train of thoughts would enter the lender's mind; the consciousness of which, would haunt me like a crime. My actions would be scanned--I should be blamed for this, rebuked for that--even your name, my Ethel, which I would place, like a star in the sky, far above their mathematical measurements, would become stale in their mouths, and the propriety of our marriage canvassed: could you bear that?" "I yield to all you say," she answered; "yet this is strange morality. Are generosity, benevolence, and gratitude, to be exploded among us? Is justice, which orders that the rich give of his superfluity to the poor, to be banished from the world?"