"You talk of nothing else." It was just possible to make one more mistake in dealing with her--and Horace made it.

He took offense, on his side, and rose from the sofa.
His mother and sisters were high authorities in his estimation; they variously represented his ideal of perfection in women.

He withdrew to the opposite extremity of the room, and administered the severest reproof that he could think of on the spur of the moment.
"It would be well, Grace, if you followed the example set you by my mother and my sisters," he said.

"_They_ are not in the habit of speaking cruelly to those who love them." To all appearance the rebuke failed to produce the slightest effect.
She seemed to be as indifferent to it as if it had not reached her ears.
There was a spirit in her--a miserable spirit, born of her own bitter experience--which rose in revolt against Horace's habitual glorification of the ladies of his family.

"It sickens me," she thought to herself, "to hear of the virtues of women who have never been tempted! Where is the merit of living reputably, when your life is one course of prosperity and enjoyment?
Has his mother known starvation?
Have his sisters been left forsaken in the street ?" It hardened her heart--it almost reconciled her to deceiving him--when he set his relatives up as patterns for her.