"Dora is hardly one of that set."
"I hope she may keep out of it, but marriage will give her many opportunities. Well, I am sorry for the young priest. He isn't fit to manage a woman like Dora Denning. I am afraid he will get the worst of it."
"I think you are very unkind, father. Dora is my friend, and I know her. She is a girl of intense feelings and very affectionate. And she has dissolved all her life and mind in Mr. Stanhope's life and mind, just as a lump of sugar is dissolved in water."
Ruth laughed. "Can you not find a more poetic simile, Ethel?"
"It will do. This is an age of matter; a material symbol is the proper thing."
"I am glad to hear she has dissolved her mind in Stanhope's," said Judge Rawdon. "Dora's intellect in itself is childish. What did the man see in her that he should desire her?"
"Father, you never can tell how much brains men like with their beauty. Very little will do generally. And Dora has beauty--great beauty; no one can deny that. I think Dora is giving up a great deal. To her, at least, marriage is a state of passing from perfect freedom into the comparative condition of a slave, giving up her own way constantly for some one else's way."
"Well, Ethel, the remedy is in the lady's hands. She is not forced to marry, and the slavery that is voluntary is no hardship. Now, my dear, I have a case to look over, and you must excuse me to-night. To-morrow we shall know more concerning Mr. Mostyn, and it is easier to talk about certainties than probabilities."
But if conversation ceased about Mr. Mostyn, thought did not; for, a couple of hours afterwards, Ethel tapped at her aunt's door and said, "Just a moment, Ruth."
"Yes, dear, what is it?"
"Did you notice what father said about the mortgage on Rawdon Manor"'
"Yes."
"He seemed to know all about it."
"I think he does know all about it."
"Do you think he holds it?"
"He may do so--it is not unlikely."
"Oh! Then Mr. Fred Mostyn, if he is to inherit Rawdon, would like the mortgage removed?"
"Of course he would."
"And the way to remove it would be to marry the daughter of the holder of the mortgage?"