have been obliged to give him strong encouragement"

"Father!"

"Nay, my love, your delicacy and feelings nave been sufficiently
respected, but he has so much diffidence of himself, and permits the
unpleasant circumstances connected with his birth to weigh so much on
his mind, that I have been compelled to tell him, what I am sure you
will approve, that we disregard family connections, and look only to
the merit of the individual."

"I hope, father, nothing was said to give Mr. Powis reason to suppose
we did not deem him every way our equal."

"Certainly not. He is a gentleman, and I can claim to be no more.
There is but one thing in which connections ought to influence an
American marriage, where the parties are suited to each other in the
main requisites, and that is to ascertain that neither should be
carried, necessarily, into associations for which their habits have
given them too much and too good tastes to enter into. A _woman_,
especially, ought never to be transplanted from a polished to
an unpolished circle; for, when this is the case, if really a
lady, there will be a dangerous clog on her affection for her
husband. This one great point assured, I see no other about which a
parent need feel concern."

"Powis, unhappily, has no connections in this country; or none with
whom he has any communications; and those he has in England are of a
class to do him credit."

"We have been conversing of this, and he has manifested so much
proper feeling that it has even raised him in my esteem. I knew his
father's family, and must have known his father, I think, though
there were two or three Asshetons of the name of John. It is a highly
respectable family of the middle states, and belonged formerly to the
colonial aristocracy. Jack Effingham's mother was an Assheton."

"Of the same blood, do you think, sir? I remembered this when Mr.
Powis mentioned his father's name, and intended to question cousin
Jack on the subject."

"Now you speak of it, Eve, there _must_ be a relationship
between them. Do you suppose that our kinsman is acquainted with the
fact that Paul is, in truth, an Assheton?"

Eve told her father that she had never spoken with their relative on
the subject, at all.

Then ring the bell and we will ascertain at once how far my
conjecture is true. You can have no false delicacy, my child, about
letting your engagement be known to one as near and as dear to us, as
John."

"Engagement, father!"

"