Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/93

 has been crying over the story of Baucis and Philemon. 'Methinks,' she says, 'they were the perfectest characters of a contented marriage, where piety and love were all their wealth, and in their poverty feasted the gods when rich men shut them out.' But in that identical letter she warns her lover that  ' this is the world; would you and I were out on't!' And in the next letter she derides the foolish young people who marry for love, and pointedly reminds poor Temple that all the world must be informed 'what fortune you have, and upon what terms I marry you—that both may not be made to appear ten times worse than they are.

"Yes—yes; I remember," Cornelia said, with—I thought—a faint note of reverie. "Love and wit met in that encounter, and both came away much improved. I must give that book to my Dorothy. She was a sensible girl—Dorothy Osborne was a very sensible girl. It is a book that will help a young girl to understand that she needn't be an idiot."

"At heart," I said, "even the sweetest of women are as hard as nails, aren't they?"

"Someone has to be," said Cornelia.

"You mean," I interpreted, "if the young lovers aren't to make fools of themselves."