cause
she is going to love him. It is a great pity _you_ should have him,
Hesper. I wish you would hand him over to me. _I_ shouldn't mind what
he was. I should soon tame him."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Hesper, with righteous
indignation. "_You would not mind what lie was!_"

Sepia laughed--this time her curious half-laugh.

"If I did, I wouldn't marry him, Hesper," she said. "Which is
worse--not to mind, and marry him; or to mind, and marry him all the
same? Eh, Cousin Hesper Mortimer?"

"I _can't_ make you out, Sepia!" said Hesper. "I believe I never shall."

"Very likely. Give it up?"

"Quite."

"The best thing you could do. I can't always make myself out. But,
then, I always give it up directly, and so it does me no harm. But it's
ten times worse to worry your poor little heart to rags about such a
man as that; he's not worth a thought from a grand creature like you.
Where's the use, besides? Would you stand staring at your medicine a
whole day before the time for taking it comes? I wouldn't have my right
leg cut off because that is the side my dog walks on, and dogs go mad!
Slip, cup, and lip--don't you know? The man may be underground long
before the wedding-day: he's anything but sound, they tell me. But it
would be far better soon after it, of course. Think only--a young
widow, rich, and not a straw the worse!"

"Sepia, I can't for the life of me tell whether you are a Job's
comforter or the devil's advocate."

"Not the latter, my child; for I want to see you emerge a saint from
the miseries of matrimony. But, whatever you do, Hesper, don't break
your heart, for you will find it hard to mend. I broke mine once, and
have been mad ever since."

"What is the use of saying that to me, when you know I have to marry
the man?"

"I never said you were not to marry him; I said you were not to break
your heart. Marriage is nothing so long as you do not make a heart
affair of it; that hurts; and, as you are not in love, there is no
occasion for it at all."

"Marriage is nothing, Sepia! Is it nothing to be tied to a man--to
_any_ man--for all your life?"

"That's as you take it. Nobody makes so much of it nowadays as they
used. The clergy themselves, who are at the bottom of all the business,
don't fuss about every trifle in the prayer-book. They sign the
articles, and have done with it--meaning, of course, to break them, if
they stand in their way."

Hesper rose in anger.

"How dare