'But Martha won't be always with you. Gladys and I, I am sure, would be glad to come and stay with you sometimes; but, Susan dearest, I know Gladys well, and she would soon mope to death here where she would see no one of the opposite sex. Besides, her tastes are not half so countrified as mine, and I declare to you that, much as I love you, I do not think I could live here much longer without being tired of myself, and even of you. Women require men just as much as men require women. If you had some handsome, agreeable young squires down here it would be pleasant enough to spend the days flirting in the fields and woods with them, but there is not a soul!'

My goodness, Lucia, how you do care about men! Now I declare I should not mind it; I never saw another in my life!'

'That is because you have never known a town, my dear Susan. You have never known what it is to be wooed! You don't know the pleasure of courtship. You don't know what it is to have a man worshipping the very ground you have walked on. In fact you have never even dreamt of love.'

I was silent.

'Well,' she continued, 'now have you?' 'I really do not understand a word of what you are talking about, Lucia. To me a man is nothing, and as for love, except for the love of my parents, or of you, or of dear old Martha, I know nothing. You mean something, I am sure, of which I have never heard. Of course a husband loves his wife, a parent his child, but I can't see what there is in such love for anybody to rave about as you do!'

'Have you never read any novels, nor any love stories, Susan?' she went on.

'No! My father and mother said they were foolish stuff.'

'I have heard them say so. And have you not even Sir Walter Scott or Shakespeare in the house?'