A new man may buy a forest; but he can't get park trees." Phineas, at the moment, was thinking how far all these things which he saw, the mountains stretching everywhere around him, the castle, the lake, the river, the wealth of it all, and, more than the wealth, the nobility of the beauty, might act as temptations to Lady Laura Standish.

If a woman were asked to have the half of all this, would it be possible that she should prefer to take the half of his nothing?
He thought it might be possible for a girl who would confess, or seem to confess, that love should be everything.

But it could hardly be possible for a woman who looked at the world almost as a man looked at it,--as an oyster to be opened with such weapon as she could find ready to her hand.

Lady Laura professed to have a care for all the affairs of the world.

She loved politics, and could talk of social science, and had broad ideas about religion, and was devoted to certain educational views.