Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/156

 It makes it a little easier. She doesn't consider hearts, does she?"

"She made just such a marriage herself, Peggy, and it turned out happily. Perhaps she thinks such marriages stand just as good a chance of bringing happiness as the other kind. I don't know. We've never talked about it; the event has always been remote. She is a very good mother, one of the very best, Peggy, and she's wise."

"I shouldn't have criticised her," said Peggy. "Perhaps she is right."

"At all events, I believe she thinks she is," he answered. "I suppose my rôle looks rather a mean one. Probably you are thinking that a man might choose for himself"

"No, I wasn't." She shook her head. "I understand. A big fortune is a sort of trust, I suppose, and those who possess it aren't free to—to do as they will."

"That, at least, is the way my folks look at it. And the same view is taken by other families. Where it will end, God only knows! My mother seems to believe that when all the wealth of the country is at last in the hands of a few the