“I look at him sometimes while you get so absorbed listening that you seem to forget everything; and I see the gratified expression of his face while he watches you.  I know it would be a disappointment to him if you should develop into a fashionable, feather-headed woman.”

“Or a widow-helping philanthropist,” I said, laughing.

“Of the two, he would prefer the latter.”

“But neither would be his ideal.”

“I am not altogether certain of that; but I do know he holds in strong dislike a woman who simply exists to follow the fashions, no matter how attractive she may be.”

“I am ashamed to say I like getting new things, especially when they are becoming,” I said, a little shamefacedly.

“I am sure you would get tired of a perpetual round of new hats and frocks, and trying them on, I am not apt to be mistaken in a person.”

“But it is vastly easier to think of harmonious colors and combinations of dry goods, than it is to puzzle over those knotty subjects we listen to here in the evening, or to translate Chopin or Wagner, or the other great masters.”

“But once mastering any of these, the pleasure arising therefrom gives satisfaction to a noble cast of mind that a whole gallery of Worth’s choicest costumes could not produce.”

“Solomon said:  Much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

“Solomon was an intellectual dyspeptic.  But granting that it is a weariness, it is something that pays well for the weariness.”

“If all the world were to come to Mr. Winthrop’s way of thinking, it would be a sad thing for the dressmakers.”

“Not necessarily.  They would still be needed, but they would do the thinking about what would best suit the style of their respective customers; and the latter would be left free of that special task, to devote their minds to their own interior furnishing.”

“Ah, you describe a second Utopia, or the golden age.  A few in each generation might reach that clear, chill region of sublime thought; but the rank and file of womankind, and perhaps of mankind, would despise them as cranks.”

“But if they had something vastly better than the respect of the careless and uncultured, need they mind what these would say?”

“Possibly not; but in most women’s hearts there is an innate love of adornment, and the art they will not relegate very willingly to others.”

“I did not think you cared so much for dress.”

“You and Mr. Winthrop are putting the strongest temptations in my way, and then expect that I shall calmly turn my dazzled eyes inwards upon the unfurnished, empty spaces of my own mind.”

“You seemed to care almost too little for elegance of attire, I thought.”

“What the eyes do not see the heart never longs for.  But glossy velvets, shimmering silks, with colors perfected from the tints of the rainbow; laces that are a marvel of fineness and beauty; and gems that might dazzle older heads than mine, thrown recklessly in my way, could any young creature fond of pretty things turn away from them, with the indifference of a wrinkled philosopher?  I should have staid at Oaklands, and saved my money for the Mill Road folk.”