"Oh, cousin, I am so glad to see you! I did not expect you so soon." "The logic of events, Adriana! And you cannot oppose their arguments. Selina Zabriski has made up her mind to go to Florida. Now, as you know, I have stayed with Selina for sixteen winters; and her absurdity throws me out into space, as it were." "Are you coming back to the country?" "To the country! In December! No, Adriana. I have rented Selina's house, and her man-servants, and her maid-servants, her dogs and her cats, her carriages and her horses; and I want you to come and stay with me. Will you?" "Cousin! It will make me the happiest girl in the world to do so. Do you think father will be willing for me to go?" "Fathers are persuadable. I have some excellent arguments. I want you, at once, though." "I shall be glad to go at once. Still, father will be very lonely. I ought to think of that." "Cousin Peter will not let his loneliness interfere with your pleasure, or else I do not know Cousin Peter. And also I think Antony Van Hoosen would be better here than haunting operas and theatres, and every spot by night and day, where Rose Filmer beckons him. Oh! I know that Filmer girl; and the more I think of her the less I think of her. She has Antony's heart under her foot, and she turns and turns her French heel on it, as if it were a worm. But if Antony must be in New York, he shall have a home from which he may command the Filmers. At least, I shall offer him this advantage." "Command!" "I think so. If there is one thing Emma Filmer aspires to, longs for, covets, and hankers after, it is to step within the charmed chalk circle, which encloses the central reserve of what she calls 'society.' Selina Zabriski is one of this potent reserve, and your poor cousin has a kind of, a sort of, a power in it. Oh! I know Emma Filmer! And Henry Filmer, also--poor fellow! In New York we don't think much of husbands, but we don't often drive them to writing books about--_civilization!_" She was silent for a moment or two, then she resumed: "When I was a slip of a girl, Adriana, I had a 'thoughtful' feeling about Henry Filmer. The old Dominie used to say to me, 'Henry is a good lad, Alida, and there is a kind of providence in the way your lands lie. Land and love is fair matrimony, you may depend upon that, Alida.'" "Then, cousin, did you once intend to marry Mr. Filmer?" "As I say, I had got as far as 'thinking.' But Henry Filmer wrote poetry, and I am not poetical. Emma Colbert set his poems to music, and sang them! What man could resist such tactics? With her 'Ohs!' and her 'Ahs!' and her tinkling piano, she took him captive. Poor Henry Filmer! I do not suppose she has sung him a single poem since they were married. So, you see, I might have been your mother-in-law." "Cousin Alida!"