"For my part," said Alice, "I only wish it were I. I'd have him in a minute. Aunty, _did_ you see that nobby phæton he was driving the last day he was on the park; those horses, and that white fur lap-robe, with the long pluffy hair like silver? I must say, Eva, I think you are a little goose." "I've no objection to the park phæton, or horses or lap-robe; but it isn't those I'm to marry, you see." "But Eva," said Aunt Maria, "if you wouldn't fancy such a match as Wat Sidney, who would you? he is a man of correct and temperate habits, and that's more than you can say of half the men." "But a woman doesn't necessarily want to make her most intimate and personal friend of a man merely because he doesn't drink," said Eva. "But he's good looking." "So they say, but not to me, not my style. In short, aunty, _I don't love him_, and never should; and if I were tied too close to him might end by hating him. As it is, he and I are the best friends possible. I hope we always shall stay so." "Well, I should like to know whoever will suit you Eva," said Aunt Maria. "Oh, he will come along, Aunty, never fear! I shall know him when I see him, and I dare say everybody will wonder what in the world possessed me, but _I_ shall be content. I know exactly what I want, I'm like the old party in the Ancient Mariner. I shall know when I see him 'the man that must have me,' and then I shall 'hold him with my glittering eye.'" "Well, Eva, you must remember one thing. There are not many men able to keep you in the way you always have lived." "Then, when the right one comes I shall live as he is able to keep me." "Go to housekeeping in three rooms, perhaps. You look like it." "Yes; and do my own cooking. I'm rather fond of cooking; I have decided genius that way too. Ask Jane down in the kitchen if I don't make splendid fritters. The fact is, Aunty, I have so much superfluous activity and energy that I should be quite thrown away on a rich man. A poor country rector, very devout, with dark eyes like Longfellow's Kavanah is rather my ideal. I would get up his surplices myself, and make him such lovely frontals and altar cloths! Why doesn't somebody of that sort come after me? I'm quite impatient to have a sphere and show what I can do." "Well," said Alice, "you don't catch me marrying a poor man. Not I. No home missionaries, nor poor rectors, nor distressed artists need apply at this office." "Now, girls," said Aunt Maria, "let me tell you it's all very pretty at your turn of life to dream about love in a cottage and all that, but when you have seen all of life that I have, you will know the worth of the solid; when one has been used to a certain way of living, for example, one can't change; and if you married the angel Gabriel without money, you would soon repent it."