ury should be, nothing would tempt her to sully her
children's blood by mating herself with any one that was base born.
She felt that were she an Augusta Gresham, no Mr Moffat, let his
wealth be what it might, should win her hand unless he too could tell
of family honours and a line of ancestors.

And so, with a mind at war with itself, she came forth armed to do
battle against the world's prejudices, those prejudices she herself
loved so well.

And was she to give up her old affections, her feminine loves,
because she found that she was a cousin to nobody? Was she no longer
to pour out her heart to Beatrice Gresham with all the girlish
volubility of an equal? Was she to be severed from Patience Oriel,
and banished--or rather was she to banish herself--from the free
place she had maintained in the various youthful female conclaves
held within that parish of Greshamsbury?

Hitherto, what Mary Thorne would say, what Miss Thorne suggested in
such or such a matter, was quite as frequently asked as any opinion
from Augusta Gresham--quite as frequently, unless when it chanced
that any of the de Courcy girls were at the house. Was this to be
given up? These feelings had grown up among them since they were
children, and had not hitherto been questioned among them. Now they
were questioned by Mary Thorne. Was she in fact to find that her
position had been a false one, and must be changed?

Such had been her feelings when she protested that she would not be
Augusta Gresham's bridesmaid, and offered to put her neck beneath
Beatrice's foot; when she drove the Lady Margaretta out of the room,
and gave her own opinion as to the proper grammatical construction of
the word humble; such also had been her feelings when she kept her
hand so rigidly to herself while Frank held the dining-room door open
for her to pass through.

"Patience Oriel," said she to herself, "can talk to him of her father
and mother: let Patience take his hand; let her talk to him;" and
then, not long afterwards, she saw that Patience did talk to him; and
seeing it, she walked along silent, among some of the old people, and
with much effort did prevent a tear from falling down her cheek.

But why was the tear in her eye? Had she not proudly told Frank that
his love-making was nothing but a boy's silly rhapsody? Had she not
said so while she had yet reason to hope that her blood was as good
as his own? Had she not seen at a glance that his love tirade was
wo