Really, I've no right to marry any but a rich girl, who has her own income.

And, even if I fell in love with a rich girl, I wouldn't have the nerve to propose to her.

I'd feel like a cheap fortune hunter." Having made up his mind to put Laura Bentley out of his inner thoughts, Prescott did not write her as often as formerly.
He wrote often enough, and pleasantly enough to preserve the courtesies of life.

Yet keen-witted Belle Meade was not long in discovering, from what Laura thought were chance remarks, that Dick was "dropping away" as a correspondent.
So, too, Laura's letters were fewer and briefer.
"Dick didn't really care for her, I guess," Belle decided, almost vengefully.

"Then the bigger idiot he is, for there aren't many girls like Laura born in any one century! But Dick sees a good many girls at West Point, and perhaps he has grown indifferent to his old friends.