ng boy, her heart
told her. What he needed was merely some good girl to take care of him
and convert him to the Episcopal Church. And immediately, as is the way
with women, she became as anxious to sacrifice Virginia to this possible
redemption of the male as she had been alarmed by the suspicion that
such a desire existed in Susan. Though it would have shocked her to hear
that she held any opinion in common with Mohammed (who appeared in the
universal history she taught only in a brief list of "false prophets"),
there existed deep down in her the feeling that a man's soul was of
greater consequence than a woman's in the eyes of God.

"I hope you haven't been foolish, Oliver," she said in a tone which
conveyed an emotional sympathy as well as a moral protest.

"That depends upon what you mean by foolishness," he returned, still
smiling.

"Well, I don't think you ought to quarrel with Cyrus. He may not be
perfect. I am not saying that he mightn't have been a better husband,
for instance--though I always hold the woman to blame when a marriage
turns out a failure--but when all's said and done, he is a great man,
Oliver."

He shook his head impatiently. "I've heard that until I'm sick of
it--forgive me, Cousin Priscilla."

"Everybody admires him--that is, everybody except Belinda."

"I should say she'd had excellent opportunities for forming an opinion.
What's he ever done, anyhow, that's great," he asked almost angrily,
"except accumulate money? It seems to me that you've gone mad over money
in Dinwiddie. I suppose it's the reaction from having to do without it
so long."

Miss Priscilla, whose native serenity drew strength from another's loss
of temper, beamed into his flushed face as if she enjoyed the spectacle
of his heightened colour.

"You oughtn't to talk like that, Oliver," she said. "How on earth are
you going to fall in love and marry, if you haven't any money to keep a
wife? What you need is a good girl to look after you. I never married,
myself, but I am sometimes tempted to believe that even an unhappy
marriage is better than none at all. At least it gives you something to
think about."

"I have enough to think about already. I have my work."

"But work isn't a wife."

"I know it isn't, but I happen to like it better."

Her matchmaking instinct had received a check, but the placid
determination which was the basis of her character was merely reinforced
thereby to further efforts. It was for his