"I heartily wish she was only here to outwit you!" laughed his cousin, nestling her head against his arm as they sat together on the sofa.
"Who? The widow or the match-maker?"
"Oh! the match-maker, of course. There is more than one Ruth already in the field."
The last clause was whispered so low that only St. Elmo heard it, and any other woman but Estelle Harding would have shrunk away in utter humiliation from the eye and the voice that answered: "Yourself and Mrs. Powell! Eat Boaz's barley as long as you like-- nay, divide Boaz's broad fields between you; and you love your lives, keep out of Boaz's way."
"You ought both to be ashamed of yourselves. I am surprised at you, Estelle, to encourage St. Elmo's irreverence," said Mrs. Murray, severely.
"I am sure, Aunt Ellen, I am just as much shocked as you are; but when he does not respect even your opinions, how dare I presume to hope he will show any deference to mine? St. Elmo, what think you of the last Sibylline leaves of your favorite Ruskin? In looking over his new book, I was surprised to find this strong assertion ... Here is the volume now--listen to this, will you?"
"'Shakespeare has no heroes; he has only heroines. In his labored and perfect plays you find no hero, but almost always a perfect woman; steadfast in grave hope and errorless purpose. The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and failing that, there is none!'"
"For instance, Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Regan, Goneril, and last, but not least, Petruchio's sweet and gentle Kate! De gustibus!" answered Mr. Murray.
"Those are the exceptions, and of course you pounce upon them. Ruskin continues: 'In all cases with Scott, as with Shakespeare, it is the woman who watches over, teaches and guides the youth; it is never by any chance the man who watches over or educates her; and thus--'"
"Meg Merrilies, Madge Wildfire, Mause Headrigg, Effie Deans, and Rob Roy's freckle-faced, red-haired, angelic Helen!" interrupted her cousin.
"Don't be rude, St. Elmo. You fly in my face like an exasperated wasp. I resume: 'Dante's great poem is a song of praise for Beatrice's watch over his soul; she saves him from hell, and leads him star by star up into heaven--'"
"Permit me to suggest that conjugal devotion should have led him to apostrophize the superlative charms of his own wife, Gemma, from whom he was forced to separate; and that his vision of hell was a faint reflex of his domestic felicity."