of her to say this; but she had not meant
to say it in the sense which the sounds seemed to bear. She had
failed in being able to bring her uncle to the point she wished
by the road she had planned, and in seeking another road, she had
abruptly fallen into unpleasant places.

"I should be very sorry that my niece should think so," said he; "and
am sorry, too, that she should say so. But, Mary, to tell the truth,
I hardly know at what you are driving. You are, I think, not so clear
minded--certainly, not so clear worded--as is usual with you."

"I will tell you, uncle;" and, instead of looking up into his face,
she turned her eyes down on the green lawn beneath her feet.

"Well, Minnie, what is it?" and he took both her hands in his.

"I think that Miss Gresham should not marry Mr Moffat. I think so
because her family is high and noble, and because he is low and
ignoble. When one has an opinion on such matters, one cannot but
apply it to things and people around one; and having applied my
opinion to her, the next step naturally is to apply it to myself.
Were I Miss Gresham, I would not marry Mr Moffat though he rolled
in gold. I know where to rank Miss Gresham. What I want to know is,
where I ought to rank myself?"

They had been standing when she commenced her last speech; but as
she finished it, the doctor moved on again, and she moved with him.
He walked on slowly without answering her; and she, out of her full
mind, pursued aloud the tenor of her thoughts.

"If a woman feels that she would not lower herself by marrying in
a rank beneath herself, she ought also to feel that she would not
lower a man that she might love by allowing him to marry into a rank
beneath his own--that is, to marry her."

"That does not follow," said the doctor quickly. "A man raises a
woman to his own standard, but a woman must take that of the man she
marries."

Again they were silent, and again they walked on, Mary holding her
uncle's arm with both her hands. She was determined, however, to come
to the point, and after considering for a while how best she might
do it, she ceased to beat any longer about the bush, and asked him a
plain question.

"The Thornes are as good a family as the Greshams, are they not?"

"In absolute genealogy they are, my dear. That is, when I choose to
be an old fool and talk of such matters in a sense different from
that in which they are spoken of by the world at large, I may say
that the Thornes ar