"I assure you," said Mrs. Tristram, "that I am very serious. To prove
it, I will make you a proposal. Should you like me, as they say here, to
marry you?"

"To hunt up a wife for me?"

"She is already found. I will bring you together."

"Oh, come," said Tristram, "we don't keep a matrimonial bureau. He will
think you want your commission."

"Present me to a woman who comes up to my notions," said Newman, "and I
will marry her tomorrow."

"You have a strange tone about it, and I don't quite understand you. I
didn't suppose you would be so coldblooded and calculating."

Newman was silent a while. "Well," he said, at last, "I want a great
woman. I stick to that. That's one thing I CAN treat myself to, and if
it is to be had I mean to have it. What else have I toiled and struggled
for, all these years? I have succeeded, and now what am I to do with
my success? To make it perfect, as I see it, there must be a beautiful
woman perched on the pile, like a statue on a monument. She must be as
good as she is beautiful, and as clever as she is good. I can give my
wife a good deal, so I am not afraid to ask a good deal myself. She
shall have everything a woman can desire; I shall not even object to
her being too good for me; she may be cleverer and wiser than I can
understand, and I shall only be the better pleased. I want to possess,
in a word, the best article in the market."