to get their
husbands high office, some intriguing for honors or Court favor; all of
them ready to do a sharp thing,--to make a hit on the Stock Exchange."

"And are there none above these mean and petty subterfuges?" cried she,
indignantly.

"Yes; the few I have told you,--they who come into the world to claim
the stakes. They can afford to be high-minded, and generous, and
noble-hearted, as much as they please. They are booked 'all right,'
and need never trouble their heads about the race; and that is the real
reason, girl, why these men have an ascendancy over all others. They are
not driven to scramble for a place; they have no struggles to encounter;
the crowd makes way for them as they want to pass; and if they have
anything good, ay, or even good-looking, about them, what credit don't
they get for it!"

"But surely there must be many a lowly walk where a man with contentment
can maintain himself honorably and even proudly?"

"I don't know of them, if there be," said Davis, sulkily. "Lawyers,
parsons, merchants, are all, I fancy, pretty much alike,--all on 'the
dodge.'"

"And Beecher,--poor Beecher?" broke in Lizzy. And there was a blended
pity and tenderness in the tone that made it very difficult to say what
her question really implied.

"Why do you call him poor Beecher?" asked he, quickly. "He ain't so poor
in one sense of the word."

"It was in no allusion to his fortune I spoke. I was thinking of him
solely with reference to his character."

"And he is poor Beecher, is he, then?" asked Davis, half sternly.

If she did not reply, it was rather in the fear of offending her father,
whose manner, so suddenly changing, apprised her of an interest in the
subject she had never suspected.

"Look here, Lizzy," said he, drawing her arm more closely to his side,
while he bespoke her attention; "men born in Beecher's class don't
need to be clever; they have no necessity for the wiles and schemes and
subtleties that--that fellows like myself, in short, must practise. What
they want is good address, pleasing manners,--all the better if they be
good-looking. It don't require genius to write a check on one's banker;
there is no great talent needed to say 'Yes,' or 'No,' in the House of
Lords. The world--I mean their own world--likes them all the more if
they have n't got great abilities. Now Beecher is just the fellow to
suit them."

"He is not a peer, surely?" asked she, hastily.

"No, he ain't yet, but he