y? And if so, would it not be his duty to take
his girl away from Lady Cantrip? As to the idea that young people,
because they have declared themselves to be in love, were to have
just what they wanted,--with that he did not agree at all. Lady
Cantrip had told him that young people generally did prevail at last.
He knew the story of one young person, whose position in her youth
had been very much the same as that of his daughter now, and she had
not prevailed. And in her case had not the opposition which had been
made to her wishes been most fortunate? That young person had become
his wife, his Glencora, his Duchess. Had she been allowed to have her
own way when she was a child, what would have been her fate? Ah what!
Then he had to think of it all. Might she not have been alive now,
and perhaps happier than she had ever been with him? And had he
remained always unmarried, devoted simply to politics, would not the
troubles of the world have been lighter on him? But what had that
to do with it? In these matters it was not the happiness of this or
that individual which should be considered. There is a propriety in
things;--and only by an adherence to that propriety on the part of
individuals can the general welfare be maintained. A King in this
country, or the heir or the possible heir to the throne, is debarred
from what might possibly be a happy marriage by regard to the good
of his subjects. To the Duke's thinking the maintenance of the
aristocracy of the country was second only in importance to the
maintenance of the Crown. How should the aristocracy be maintained if
its wealth were allowed to fall into the hands of an adventurer!

Such were the opinions with regard to his own order of one who was as
truly Liberal in his ideas as any man in England, and who had argued
out these ideas to their consequences. As by the spread of education
and increase of general well-being every proletaire was brought
nearer to a Duke, so by such action would the Duke be brought nearer
to a proletaire. Such drawing-nearer of the classes was the object
to which all this man's political action tended. And yet it was a
dreadful thing to him that his own daughter should desire to marry a
man so much beneath her own rank and fortune as Frank Tregear.

He would not allow himself to believe that the young people could
ever prevail; but nevertheless, as the idea of the thing had not
alarmed Lady Cantrip as it had him, it was necessary that he s