Farnham felt his heart grow hot with something like scorn for the
worthy woman, as she prattled on in this way. He could hardly trust
himself to reply and soon took his leave. Alice rose and gave him her
hand with frank and winning cordiality. As he felt the warm soft
pressure of her strong fingers, and the honest glance of her wide young
eyes, his irritation died away for a moment, but soon came back with
double force.

"Gracious heavens!" he exclaimed, as he closed the door behind him, and
stepped into the clear spring starlight, hardly broken as yet by the
budding branches of the elms and limes. "What a crazy woman that mother
is! Her daughter has come home to her a splendid white swan, and she is
waddling and quacking about with anxiety and fear lest the little male
ducklings that frequent the pond should find her too white and too
stately."

Instead of walking home he turned up the long avenue, and went rapidly
on, spurred by his angry thoughts.

"What will become of that beautiful girl? She cannot hold out forever
against the universal custom. She will be led by her friends and pushed
by her mother, until she drops to the level of the rest and becomes a
romping flirt; she will go to parties with young Furrey, and to church
with young Snevel. I shall see her tramping the streets with one, and
waltzing all night with another, and sitting on the stairs with a
third. She is too pretty to be let alone, and her mother is against
her. She is young and the force of nature is strong, and women are born
for sacrifice--she will marry one of these young shrimps, and do her
duty in the sphere whereto she has been called."