She had read a good deal, and thought she understood such things better than Miss Mortimer.

But she caught herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned.

For that a young woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss Mortimer did, was too horrible to be understood--and she had smiled! She would have been less shocked with Hesper, however, had she known that she forced an indifference she could not feel--her last poor rampart of sand against the sea of horror rising around her.

But from her heart she pitied her, almost as one of the lost.
"Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I shall cry.
Look the other way, and listen .-- I am marrying money, I tell you--and for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of it.

Mr.Mortimer will be father enough to see to that! So I shall be able to do what I please.