from the respect of good
men or the society of well-ordered ladies. I do not say that the
marriage would be well-assorted. I do not recommend it. Though my
boy's heart is dearer to me than anything else can be in the world,
I can see that it may be fit that his heart should be made to suffer.
But when you talk of the sacrifice which he and your sister are
called on to make, so that others should be delivered from lesser
sacrifices, I think you should ask what duty would require from
yourself. I do not think she would sacrifice the noble blood of the
Traffords more effectually than you would by a similar marriage." As
she thus spoke she leant forward from her chair on the table, and
looked him full in the face. And he felt, as she did so, that she was
singularly handsome, greatly gifted, a woman noble to the eye and to
the ear. She was pleading for her son,--and he knew that. But she had
condescended to use no mean argument.

"If you will say that such a law is dominant among your class,
and that it is one to which you would submit yourself, I will not
repudiate it. But you shall not induce me to consent to it, by even
a false idea as to the softer delicacy of the sex. That softer
delicacy, with its privileges and duties, shall be made to stand for
what it is worth, and to occupy its real ground. If you use it for
other mock purposes, then I will quarrel with you." It was thus that
she had spoken, and he understood it all.

"I am not brought in question," he said slowly.

"Cannot you put it to yourself as though you were brought in
question? You will at any rate admit that my argument is just."

"I hardly know. I must think of it. Such a marriage on my part would
not outrage my stepmother, as would that of my sister."

"Outrage! You speak, Lord Hampstead, as though your mother would
think that your sister would have disgraced herself as a woman!"

"I am speaking of her feelings,--not of mine. It would be different
were I to marry in the same degree."

"Would it? Then I think that perhaps I had better counsel George not
to go to Hendon Hall."

"My sister is not there. They are all in Germany."

"He had better not go where your sister will be thought of."

"I would not quarrel with your son for all the world."

"It will be better that you should. Do not suppose that I am pleading
for him." That, however, was what he did suppose, and that was
what she was doing. "I have told him already that I think that the
p