“Well, mamma, I want a man,—­not an habitue.  What’s more, I must be in love with the man, or he won’t stand the ghost of a chance.  So you see the prospects are that you will have me on your hands indefinitely.  Mr. Lanniere, indeed!  What should I be but a part of his possessions,—­another expensive luxury in his luxurious life?  I want a man like papa,—­earnest, large-brained, and large-hearted,—­who, instead of inveighing against the times, is absorbed in the vital questions of the day, and is doing his part to solve them rightly.  I would like to take Mr. Lanniere into a military hospital or cemetery, and show him what the war has cost other men.”

“Why, Marian, how you talk!”

“I wish I could make you know how I feel.  It seems to me that one has only to think a little and look around in order to feel deeply.  I read of an awful battle while coming up in the cars.  We have been promised, all the spring, that Richmond would be taken, the war ended, and all go on serenely again; but it doesn’t look like it.”

“What’s the use of women distressing themselves with such things?” said Mrs. Vosburgh, irritably.  “I can’t bear to think of war and its horrors, except as they give spice to a story.  Our whole trouble is a big political squabble, and you know I detest politics.  It is just as Mr. Lanniere says,—­if our people had only let slavery alone all would have gone on veil.  The leaders on both sides will find out before the summer is over that they have gone too far and fast, and they had better settle their differences with words rather than blows.  We shall all be shaking hands ana making up before Christmas.”

“Papa doesn’t think so.”

“Your father is a German at heart.  He has the sense to be practical about every-day affairs and enjoy a good dinner, but he amuses himself with cloudy speculations and ideals and vast questions about the welfare of the world, or the ‘trend of the centuries,’ as he said one day to me.  I always try to laugh him out of such vague nonsense.  Has he been talking to you about the ’trend of the centuries’?”

“No, mamma, he has not,” replied Marian, gravely; “but if he does I shall try to understand what he means and be interested.  I know that papa feels deeply about the war, and means to take the most effective part in it that he can, and that he does not think it will end so easily as you believe.  These facts make me feel anxious, for I know how resolute papa is.”

“He has no right to take any risks,” said the lady, emphatically.

“He surely has the same right that other men have.”