'I agree with you perfectly. I never heard anyone talk better sense on the subject.' Alma looked pleased, as she always did when receiving a compliment. 'Will you believe, then, Mr. Rolfe, that I am quite in earnest in hating show and pretences and extravagance, and wishing to live in just the opposite way?' 'I will believe it if you cease to address me by that formal name--a show and a pretence, and just a little extravagant.' Her cheeks grew warm again 'That reminds me,' she said; 'I didn't know you had a second name--till I got that letter.' 'I had almost forgotten it myself, till I answered a certain other letter. I didn't know till then that _you_ had a second name. Your "Florence" called out my "Radcliffe"--which sounds fiery, doesn't it? I always felt that the name over-weighted me. I got it from my mother.' 'And your first--Harvey?' 'My first I got from a fine old doctor, about whom I'll tell you some day--Alma.' 'I named your name. I didn't address you by it.' 'But you will?' 'Let us talk seriously.--Could you live far away from London, in some place that people know nothing about?' 'With you, indeed I could, and be glad enough if I never saw London again.' An exaltation possessed Alma; her eyes grew very bright, gazing as if at a mental picture, and her hands trembled as she continued to speak.' 'I don't mean that we are to go and be hermits in a wilderness. Our friends must visit us--our real friends, no one else; just the people we really care about, and those won't be many. If I give up a public career--as of course I shall--there's no need to give up music. I can go on with it in a better spirit, for pure love of it, without any wish for making money and reputation. You don't think this a mere dream?' Harvey thought more than he was disposed to say. He marvelled at her sudden enthusiasm for an ideal he had not imagined her capable of pursuing. If he only now saw into the girl's true character, revealed by the awakening of her emotions, how nobly was his ardour justified! All but despising himself for loving her, he had instinctively chosen the one woman whose heart and mind could inspire him to a life above his own. 'I should think it a dream,' he answered, 'if I didn't hear it from your lips.' 'But it is so easy! We keep all the best things, and throw off only the worthless--the things that waste time and hurt the mind. No crowded rooms, no wearying artificial talk, no worry with a swarm of servants, no dressing and fussing. The whole day to one's self, for work and pleasure. A small house--just large enough for order and quietness, and to keep a room for the friend who comes. How many people would like such a life, but haven't the courage to live it!' 'Where shall it be, Alma?' 'I have given no promise. I only say this is the life that IJ should like. Perhaps you would soon weary of it?' 'I? Not easily, I think.'