not much except the maidenly reserves, the discontents with
herself, which interested him more than anything else; and of the
future she would not speak at all. How can a woman, without being
misunderstood? All this talk had a certain danger in it, for sympathy
is unavoidable between two persons who look ever so little into each
other's hearts and compare tastes and desires.

"I cannot quite understand your social life over here," Mr. Lyon was
saying one day. "You seem to make distinctions, but I cannot see exactly
for what."

"Perhaps they make themselves. Your social orders seem able to resist
Darwin's theory, but in a republic natural selection has a better
chance."

"I was told by a Bohemian on the steamer coming over that money in
America takes the place of rank in England."

"That isn't quite true."

"And I was told in Boston by an acquaintance of very old family and
little fortune that 'blood' is considered here as much as anywhere."

"You see, Mr. Lyon, how difficult it is to get correct information about
us. I think we worship wealth a good deal, and we worship family a good
deal, but if any one presumes too much upon either, he is likely to come
to grief. I don't understand it very well myself."

"Then it is not money that determines social position in America?"

"Not altogether; but more now than formerly. I suppose the distinction
is this: family will take a person everywhere, money will take him
almost everywhere; but money is always at this disadvantage--it takes
more and more of it to gain position. And then you will find that it is
a good deal a matter of locality. For instance, in Virginia and Kentucky
family is still very powerful, stronger than any distinction in letters
or politics or success in business; and there is a certain diminishing
number of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, who cultivate a good
deal of exclusiveness on account of descent."

"But I am told that this sort of aristocracy is succumbing to the new
plutocracy."

"Well, it is more and more difficult to maintain a position without
money. Mr. Morgan says that it is a disheartening thing to be an
aristocrat without luxury; he declares that he cannot tell whether the
Knickerbockers of New York or the plutocrats are more uneasy just now.
The one is hungry for social position, and is morose if he cannot buy
it; and when the other is seduced by luxury and yields, he finds that
his distinction is gone. For in his heart