"There's nothing you care for, then, in Ashfield?" said Phil. And at that moment a little burst of the singing of Rose came floating up the stair,--so sweet! so sweet! "Care for? Yes," said Reuben, "but they are all so good! so devilish good!"--and he puffed at his cigar with a nervous violence. It was not often that such an approach to profanity sullied the lips of Reuben, and Phil noted it with surprise. "I thought there would have been at least one magnet that would have kept you here," said Phil. "What magnet, pray?" says Reuben,--somewhat calm again. "There she goes," says Phil, looking out of the window. And at the moment Adele tripped by, with the old Doctor walking gravely at her side. "Humph!" said Reuben, with a composure that was feigned, "she's too much of a Puritan for me, Phil: or rather, I'm too little of a Puritan for her." Philip looked at his companion keenly. And Reuben, looking back at him as keenly, said, after a silence of a few moments,-- "I don't think you'll ever marry her either, Phil." "Marry!" said Phil, with a deep, honest blush,--"who talks of that?" "You, in your heart, Phil. Do you think I am blind? Do you think I have not seen that you have loved her, Phil, ever since you knew what it was to love a woman? Do you think, that, as a boy, you ever imposed upon me with your talk about that handsome Suke Boody, the tavern-keeper's daughter? Good Heavens! Phil, I think there were never two men in the world who talked their thoughts plainly to each other! Do you think I do not know that you have played the shy lover, because with your big heart you have yielded to what you counted a prior claim of mine,--because Adele was one of us at the parsonage?" "In such affairs," said Phil, with some constraint and not a little wounded pride, "I don't think men are apt to recognize prior claims." Reuben replied only by a faint sardonic smile. "You're a good fellow, Phil, but you won't marry her." "Of course, then, you know why," said Phil, with something very like a sneer. "Certainly," said Reuben. "Because you can't affront the world, because you are bound by its conventionalities and respectabilities, as I am not. I spurn them." "Respectabilities!" said Phil, in amazement. "What does this mean? Just now she was a Puritan." "It means, Phil," (and here Reuben reflected a moment or two, puffing with savage energy,) "it means what I can't wholly explain to you. You know her French blood; you know all the prejudices against the faith in which she was reared; you know she has an instinct and will of her own. In short, Phil, I don't think you'll ever marry her; but if you can, you may." "_May!_" said Phil, whose pride was now touched to the quick. "And what authority have you, pray?"