a mill about four miles off. Our hens lay our eggs; it's
all from home."

"But suppose the case of people who have no ground, nor hens, nor pork,
nor cow? they must buy."

"Of course," said the old lady; "everybody ain't farmers."

"I am ready to wish I was one," said Dillwyn. "But even then, I
confess, I should want coffee and tea and sugar--as I see you. do."

"Well, those things don't grow in America," said Mrs. Armadale.

"And spice don't, neither, mother," observed Charity.

"So it appears that even you send abroad for luxuries," Mr. Dillwyn
went on. "And why not? And the question is, where shall we stop? If I
want coffee, I must have money to buy it, and the better the coffee the
more money; and the same with tea. In cities we must buy all we use or
consume, unless one is a butcher or a baker. May I not try to get more
money, in order that I may have better things? We have got round to our
starting-point."

"'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,'" Mrs.
Armadale said quietly.

"Then where is the line?--Miss Lois, you are smiling. Is it at my
stupidity?"

"No," said Lois. "I was thinking of a lunch--such as I have seen it--in
one of the great New York hotels."

"Well?" said he, without betraying on his own part any recollection;
"how does that come in? By way of illustrating Mrs. Armadale, or me?"

"I seem to remember a number of things that illustrate both," said
Lois; "but as I profited by them at the time, it would be ungrateful in
me to instance them now."

"You profited by them with pleasure, or otherwise?"

"Not otherwise. I was very hungry."

"You evade my question, however."

"I will not. I profited by them with much pleasure."

"Then you are on my side, as far as I can be said to have a side?"

"I think not. The pleasure is undoubted; but I do not know that that
touches the question of expediency."

"I think it does. I think it settles the question. Mrs. Armadale, your
granddaughter confesses the pleasure; and what else do we live for, but
to get the most good out of life?"

"What pleasure does she confess?" asked the old lady, with more
eagerness than her words hitherto had manifested.

"Pleasure in nice things, grandmother; in particularly nice things;
that had cost a great deal to fetch them from nobody knows where; and
pleasure in pretty things too. That hotel seemed almost like the halls
of Aladdin to my inexperienced eyes. There is certainly pleasure in a