ange to me, who have been always so shy, and so shut out from
society, to be introduced--or rather plunged--into so much of it."

"Had you not society of your own when you were in the bank--your
fellow-clerks and their wives and sisters?"

"I had little intimacy with any of them, and was particularly in want
of acquaintances among the other sex. A man with no relations who
recognized his existence, and who is conscious of the doubtfulness of
his birth, as I was, does not like to push himself into society in a
country like this of Scotland, where family connections are overrated.
Now, every one seems to think that being owned by my father in his will
quite sufficient, while I am more ashamed in my secret soul of my birth
than I ever was."

"Indeed!" said Jane, "I thought it would have pleased you to be
acknowledged."

"YOU should see, if the world does not, that if one party has juggled
the other into a marriage, without any love on either side, it may
involve legal succession to property, but does not make the birth a
whit more respectable. I had a mother who did not care for me, and a
father who did his duty, as he fancied, by me, but who disliked me, and
they appear to have hated one another."

"You extorted respect and regard from your father, and you have cause
to be proud of that. If mutual love between parents is to be the great
cause of pride of birth, I, too, have reason to be ashamed of mine, for
I think my mother's love was worn out before many years of married life
were over, and my father's never was anything but self-love and
self-will. But whatever our birth may be, we are all God's children,
and equal in His eyes, in that respect at least.----Did Madame Lenoir
speak to you of her mother?"

"Yes, she did, and recollected that my name was the name of an old and
dear friend of her mother's; so she was especially kind to me for my
father's sake. I saw Madame de Vericourt's portrait, too. She was
prettier than her daughter, at least in repose; but neither of them
were at all like my ideal; for I forgot the French class of face, and
embodied my fancy portraits in an English type."

"You enjoyed French society, then?"

"Very much, indeed. The art of conversing these French people carry to
great perfection. It is not frivolous, though it is light and
sparkling; it is still less argumentative, but it has the knack of
bringing out different opinions and different views of them. We pity
the French for thei