she came up beside me.

When she did join me, she wanted to talk immensely. She had all manner
of questions to ask about where my treasure came from; how often I went
back there to replenish it; was I quite sure that it could never, never
be exhausted, and such-like? But I was in no gracious mood for such
inquiries, and, telling her that I wished to follow my own thoughts
without interruption, I walked along in silence.

I cannot tell the weight I felt at my heart I am not speaking
figuratively. No; it was exactly as though a great mass of heavy metal
filled my chest, forced out my ribs, and pressed down my diaphragm; and
though I held my hands to my sides with all my force, the pressure still
remained.

"What a bitter mockery it is," thought I, "if the only false thing in
all the world should be the human heart! There are diamonds that will
resist fire, gold that will stand the crucible; but the moment you come
to man and his affections, all is hollow and illusory!"

Why do we give the name worldliness to traits of selfish advancement
and sordid gain, when a young creature like this, estranged from all the
commerce of mankind, who knows nothing of that bargain-and-barter system
which we call civilization, reared and nurtured like a young fawn in her
native woods, should, as though by a very instinct of corruption, have a
heart as venal as any hackneyed beauty of three London seasons?

Let no man tell me now, that it is our vicious system of female
training, our false social organization, our spurious morality, laxity
of family ties, and the rest of it. I am firmly persuaded that a young
squaw of the Choctaws has as many anxieties about her _parti_ as any
belle of Belgravia, even though the settlements be only paid in sharks'
teeth and human toupees.

And what an absurdity is our whole code on this subject! A man is
actually expected to court, solicit, and even worship the object that he
is after all called upon to pay for. You do not smirk at the salmon in
your fishmonger's window, or ogle the lamb at your butcher's; you go in
boldly and say, "How much the pound?" If you sighed outside for a week,
you 'd get it never the cheaper. Why not then make an honest market
of what is so salable? What a saving of time to know that the splendid
creature yonder, with the queenly air, can only be had at ten thousand
a year, but that the spicy article with the black ringlets will go for
two! Instead of all the heart-burnings