Did she ever pause to think that her life was useless, and extravagant and unwomanly? Well, no, not yet. She was only eighteen, remember, the age when a woman has not quite ceased to be a kind of refinement upon a kitten--beautiful, graceful, capricious, mischievous, treacherous. She was at an age when a woman is apt to take pleasure in treading on masculine hearts, and if remonstrated with upon her cruelty, would be quite inclined to echo the question of the poetess, and cry,-- "Why should a heart have been there, In the way of a fair woman's foot?" Flo insisted on making a confidante of Cecil. "I'm the most mercenary of creatures, you know, dear," she said, "and I made up my mind ever so long ago that I would marry for money, and nothing but money. All the nicest girls marry for money nowadays, and live happy ever afterwards. I dare say there was a time when it was quite nice to be poor, and live in a cottage with the husband of one's choice. What a musty old Minerva Press phrase that is!" cried Flo, with a grimace,--"the husband of one's choice! But that was in the days when women wore cottage-bonnets with a bit of ribbon across the crown, or hideous gipsy hats tied down with handkerchiefs, and white muslin dresses with a breadth and a half in the skirt, and when a woman on horseback was a show to be followed by street boys. I suppose Lady Godiva and Queen Elizabeth were the only women who ever did ride in the Middle Ages. _Nous avons change tout cela._ A woman in the present day must have three or four hundred a-year for pin-money, if she is not to be a disgrace to her sex in the way of gloves and bonnets; and she must ride a three hundred guinea hack if she wants to escape being trampled upon by her dearest friends; and she will find herself a perfect outcast unless she has a box in a good position at one of the opera-houses; and she must go in for dogs and china,--not vulgar modern Dresden abominations, in the way of simpering shepherdesses, and creatures in hoops drinking chocolate or playing chess; but old Vienna, or Chelsea, with the gold anchor, or deliciously ugly Wedgwood, or soft paste. In short, my dearest Cecil, a woman nowadays is a very expensive creature, and love in a cottage is an impossibility. Why, there are no cottages for the poor lovers! The tiniest, tiniest villa on the banks of the Thames costs about two hundred a-year; and if the poverty-stricken creatures who marry for love want a house, they must go to some horrible place beyond the Seven Sisters' Road, and be happy amongst a wilderness of brickfields and railway arches!" Lady Cecil had seen Florence and Philip together, and had taken it into her head that they loved each other. Her own sorrowful love-story had made her very tenderly disposed towards youthful lovers, and she had ventured to remonstrate with Florence.