Now a strange sense of trouble and loss oppressed her. Her plans for the future were strangely disturbed; a moral earthquake had shattered her airy castles, and she was looking mournfully at their wrecks. Her cottage and her work, must she relinquish both? Was Emmie's childish notion of happiness to be frustrated also? "I would rather be the school-mistress at Hepshaw than the richest lady in Carlisle." How passionately she had said those words, and yet she had meant them from her very heart. And then, with a sudden sharp pang, she remembered that it was one of Garth Clayton's peculiarities to dislike riches for women. A certain conversation that had passed between him and his brother occurred to her with painful vividness. One of Garth's school friends had just married a wealthy widow. "What a lucky fellow young Musgrave is," Ted had grumbled. "He was never a fellow for work, and now he need not do another stroke of business for the remainder of his life. See if I don't pick up a rich wife for myself one of these days." "What! you would consent to live on your wife's money!" returned his brother, with a face of disgust. "You would help yourself out of her pocket, in order that you might eat the bread of idleness! a nice manly notion that." "Why should a man be bound to work for both if he does not choose?" replied Ted, sulkily. "I thought this was an enlightened age, and that the rights of women would entitle them to the honor of helping to be bread-winner. Don't pull such a long face, Garth; I wouldn't marry any girl if she were weighted in gold unless I liked her, only I mean to invest my affections prudently." "I don't think I could ever fall in love with a rich woman," was Garth's emphatic answer. "I believe I am peculiar on this point. If I ever marry, my wife must be dependent on me, not I on her. Why one of the chief pleasures of matrimony must be to bully your wife sometimes, just to see how nicely she takes it; but if she has all the pounds, shillings, and pence on her side, she might turn round and bully me." "Garth, how can you be so absurd," broke in Cathy. "You see, a husband ought to have all the power," he continued, in his droll, half-serious way. "The threat of withholding a new dress would reduce any woman to a state of abject submission. I should like my wife, provided I ever have one, which is not likely if you are going to be so extravagant, Cathy, I should like her to coax and wheedle me out of all her ribbons and fineries; but if she could demand a cheque for a new silk dress whenever she liked-'I should thank you to remember, Mr. Clayton, who it is who brought you all that money'--why what a fool I should feel." "Langley, do hear him; when he pays all our bills without looking at a single item."