“Good God, mother, what makes you talk so? If I thought that, I would scale the eyrie of the eagle, and carry off Hagar to some sweet South sea summer isle, where she should reign another Queen Eve over another Eden.” “Are we to have any supper to-night, Emily?” sang out Mr. Buncombe from the parlor. “Yes! I’m coming—think no more of this Hagar.” “But, mother,” interrupted Gusty, “_why_ do you have such dreadful forebodings for Hagar?” “I judge her fate by herself, her future by her past and present, and I say that, unless Providence interposes to save her as by fire, Hagar’s fierce, strong spirit will break her own heart and destroy her own soul! Come to supper.” “Destroy her own soul—come to supper—that’s a pretty brace of subjects to tie together, is it not now?” said Gusty. It must not be supposed that Emily had any unfriendly feelings towards Hagar. She did not love Hagar less, but Gusty more. And acting like a sober, prudent mother, she did not choose to permit Gusty to marry a girl who was fully as much censured as admired in the neighborhood. After supper she talked with him again, talked earnestly and for a long time, until Gusty rising, said,— “Seriously, mother, you ask too much—too much of me; you, with your cool, temperate nature, cannot sympathize with my ardent heart. Alas! how should you?—you, who at eighteen could marry a man of sixty (no disrespect, mother—I venerate my sainted father’s memory—I talk reason, but not disrespect)—you, I say, who could at eighteen wed a man of sixty, and be happy with him—you who at twenty-five, in your young widowhood, could keep a young lover waiting ten years, until your son grew up—you with your cheerful, serene temperament, how can you conceive my sufferings if severed from Hagar? My love for Hagar, if die it must, will die hard—dreadful will be its death throes; but you, mother, how can your quiet heart conceive of this—sympathize with this?”