"Maybe you 'll call refinement a delusion, Mr. Dodd," said I. "Maybe politeness and good-breeding, the French language and music are delusions? Is high society a delusion? Is the sphere we move in a delusion?" "I am disposed to think it is, Mrs. D.," said he, "and a very great delusion too. It's like nothing we were ever used to. It is not social, and it is not friendly. It has nothing to say, nor any concern with a single topic, or any one theme that we can care for. Do you know one, or can you even remember the names of any of the princes and princesses you are always discussing? Do you really care whether Mademoiselle Zephyrini's pirouette was steadier than Miss Angelina's? Does it concern you that somebody with a hard name has given the first-class order of the Pig and Whistle to somebody else, with a harder? Is it the meat stewed to rags you like, or the reputations with morality boiled out of them? Is it pleasant to think that, wherever you go, you meet nothing wholesome for mind or for body? I can stand scandal and wickedness as well as my neighbors, but I can't spend my life upon them, nor can I give up the whole day to dominos. You ask me what are delusions, and I tell you now some things that are not." But I would n't listen to more, Molly. I stopped him short by saying, "You, at least, Mr. D., have little reason for your regrets; for really, in all that regards your manner, language, dress, and demeanor, no one would ever suspect you had been a day out of Dodsborough." "I wish to my heart my bank account could tell the same story," says he; and with that he takes down a file of bills, and begins to read out some of what he calls his anti-delusions. "Do you know, Mrs. D.," says he, "that your milliner has got more money in the last four months than I have spent on my estate for the last eight years? That Genoa velvet and Mechlin lace have run away with what would have drained the Low Meadows! Ay, the price of that red turban, that made you look like Bluebeard, would have put a roof on the school-house. The priest of our parish at home did n't get as much for his dues as you gave for a seat to look at a procession in honor of Saint--Saint--" "If you 're going to blaspheme, Mr. D.," said I, "I 'll leave you;"and so I did, Molly, banging the door after me in a way that I know well his gouty ankle is not the better for. I mention these particulars to show you the difficulties I have to contend against, and the struggles it costs me to give my children the benefits of the Continent. I intended to tell you something about this place where we are stopping, too; but my head is rambling now on other matters, so that, maybe, I'll not be able to say much.