"Oh, I like him reasonably well," she said with an equal lack of
candour. "His conversation is improving. He has lived in the
metropolis, and has seen so much of the world that he can scarcely
speak without saying something interesting. It's a liberal education
to converse with people who have had opportunities. It helps to
prepare my mind for life at the North."

"You set a great deal of store by the North, Graciella. Anybody would
allow, to listen to you, that you didn't love your own country."

"I love the South, Ben, as I loved Aunt Lou, my old black mammy. I've
laid in her arms many a day, and I 'most cried my eyes out when she
died. But that didn't mean that I never wanted to see any one else.
Nor am I going to live in the South a minute longer than I can help,
because it's too slow. And New York isn't all--I want to travel and
see the world. The South is away behind."

She had said much the same thing weeks before; but then it had been
spontaneous. Now she was purposely trying to make Ben see how
unreasonable was his hope.

Ben stood, as he obscurely felt, upon delicate ground. Graciella had
not been the only person to overhear remarks about the probability of
the colonel's seeking a wife in Clarendon, and jealousy had sharpened
Ben's perceptions while it increased his fears. He had little to offer
Graciella. He was not well educated; he had nothing to recommend him
but his youth and his love for her. He could not take her to Europe,
or even to New York--at least not yet.

"And at home," Graciella went on seriously, "at home I should want
several houses--a town house, a country place, a seaside cottage. When
we were tired of one we could go to another, or live in hotels--in the
winter in Florida, at Atlantic City in the spring, at Newport in the
summer. They say Long Branch has gone out entirely."

Ben had a vague idea that Long Branch was by the seaside, and exposed
to storms. "Gone out to sea?" he asked absently. He was sick for love
of her, and she was dreaming of watering places.

"No, Ben," said Graciella, compassionately. Poor Ben had so little
opportunity for schooling! He was not to blame for his want of
knowledge; but could she throw herself away upon an ignoramus? "It's
still there, but has gone out of fashion."

"Oh, excuse me! I'm not posted on these fashionable things."

Ben relapsed into gloom. The model remained untouched. He could not
give Graciella a house; he would not have a house u