and I’ve heard men laying down the law about them at night, and I have known from their talk that they hadn’t read a page of the book itself, and were only airing the second-hand opinions picked up out of a review. “I saw you shudder once, Maude, because I didn’t know it was the right thing to say ‘Barkley Square;’ and pronounced the word as it is spelt. But oh, what bosh I’ve heard the Barkley-Squarers talk sometimes about things I do understand! I’ve heard a man at a dinner-party hold forth about our convict system sometimes, and transportation, and Van Diemen’s Land, till I’ve been inclined to get up and do something to him with a carving-knife; and oh, the self-satisfied manner of the creature, and the way he has lifted his eyebrows and looked at _me_, if I ventured to express any opinion upon the subject! In South America there may be fever and disease, perhaps--privation, danger; but there will be no Barkley Square. I may meet with Aztecs, who may maltreat or even assassinate me; but they won’t have little bits of glass that they can’t see through to hitch into their eyes whenever I speak to them. And they won’t lift their eyebrows and begin to whisper about me the moment I enter a room. And I shall never hear them say, ‘Oh, the _rich_ Tredethlyn, is it? Gad, what a clodhopper!’ “Why do I write about these things, Maude, when I am writing to bid you good-bye for ever? Only because I want you to believe there is _something_ wanting even in the perfect world in which you live. If my death should set you free in your youth, marry again, dear, by all means; but marry a man whose truth and loyalty have been proved by a life of unblemished honour; marry a man who has set his mark upon the age--who has _done something_; for such a man is scarcely likely to be a scoundrel. Above all, darling, accept my warning against _one_ man: _do not marry Harcourt Lowther_.