e best and
honestest of God's creatures are not always to be found among
so-called nobles, yet I think that a certain great respect should be
paid to those whom chance has raised to high places."

"Do I not respect him?"

"I hope so. But perhaps you may not show it best by loving him."

"As to that, it is a matter in which one can, perhaps, hardly control
oneself. If asked for love it will come from you like water from a
fountain. Unless it be so, then it cannot come at all."

"That surely is a dangerous doctrine for a young woman."

"Young women, I think, are compassed by many dangers," said Marion;
"and I know but one way of meeting them."

"What way is that, dear?"

"I will tell you, if I can find how to tell it, to-morrow."

"There is one point, Marion, on which I feel myself bound to warn
you, as I endeavoured also to warn him. To him my words seemed to
have availed nothing; but you, I think, are more reasonable. Unequal
marriages never make happy either the one side or the other."

"I hope I may do nothing to make him unhappy."

"Unhappy for a moment you must make him;--for a month, perhaps, or
for a year; though it were for years, what would that be to his whole
life?"

"For years?" said Marion. "No, not for years. Would it be more than
for days, do you think?"

"I cannot tell what may be the nature of the young man's heart;--nor
can you. But as to that, it cannot be your duty to take much thought.
Of his lasting welfare you are bound to think."

"Oh, yes; of that certainly;--of that above all things."

"I mean as to this world. Of what may come afterwards to one so
little known we here can hardly dare to speak,--or even to think. But
a girl, when she has been asked to marry a man, is bound to think of
his welfare in this life."

"I cannot but think of his eternal welfare also," said Marion.

"Unequal marriages are always unhappy," said Mrs. Roden, repeating
her great argument.

"Always?"

"I fear so. Could you be happy if his great friends, his father, and
his stepmother, and all those high-born lords and ladies who are
connected with him,--could you be happy if they frowned on you?"

"What would their frowns be to me? If he smiled I should be happy. If
the world were light and bright to him, it would certainly be light
and bright to me."

"I thought so once, Marion. I argued with myself once just as you are
arguing now."

"Nay, Mrs. Roden, I am hardly arguing."

"It was just so tha