"Robert, he wants to live in the world like other people, just for my
sake, and I can't permit such a sacrifice either."

"You must both prepare to be sacrificed, my lambs. Each of you will have
to bear and forbear, and get used to the other's repulsive selfishness
and hidebound eccentricities, to forego the sweet privacy and freedom of
self-indulgence which have marked your innocent lives hitherto. When the
glamour of young romance has faded, when the bloom is rubbed off the
peach and the juice is crushed out of the strawberry, there will remain
only the hard reality of daily duty, which is continual self-immolation.
You are wise to commence practising this virtue at once."

"You must instruct us how to do it, Bob. It would be as you say, no
doubt--with her--if she had to live at Wayback as she proposes. You have
been there enough to know that it is no place for her; tell her so. She
has confidence in you, and she won't believe me."

"It would be as you say, Robert--with him--if he had to live among the
constraints and shams which his soul abhors. You know it, and you have
great influence over him. Tell him so."

"You are both right, and it is clear there is no place where you can
live--together. James, she is a fragile flower; transplanted to your
sterile soil, she would soon wither and drop from the stalk. Clarice, he
is fastidious, critical, and intense; made a part of the things he
despises, the torturing contact with pomps and vanities would soon
strike his knell. My little dears, your paths were never meant to
unite, and the best thing you can do is to part in peace. James, this is
all imagination, and you know it; a milliner's lay-figure, or that rural
nymph at Wayback, would do just as well, and be much less exacting and
expensive. Clarice, you are pushing philanthropy too far: the
picturesqueness of this hermit, and his alleged romantic woes, have
misled you as to the nature of your interest in him. I don't think
matrimony would suit you at all: you had much better stay with us, whom
you can leave whenever you please. You could not do that so easily with
a husband, and you don't like divorce. My children, pause: you will soon
have had enough of each other, and then you can go your several ways in
peace."

"See here, old man; it is too late for this kind of wisdom, after all
the pains you have taken to bring us together when we were parted
indeed. You ought to be proud of your work, and ready to give us you