George pointed out to his mother, was hardly
more like other marquises than the son was like other marquis's sons.
There was a Radical strain in the family, as was made clear by that
tailor who was still sitting for the borough of Edgeware. Mrs. Roden,
however, though she lived so much alone, seeing hardly anything of
the world except as Mrs. Vincent might be supposed to represent the
world, had learned that the feelings and political convictions of
the Marquis were hardly what they had been before he had married his
present wife. "You may be sure, George," she had said, "that like to
like is as safe a motto for friendship as it is for love."

"Not a doubt, mother," he replied; "but before you act upon it you
must define 'like.' What makes two men like--or a man and a woman?"

"Outside circumstances of the world more than anything else," she
answered, boldly.

"I would fancy that the inside circumstances of the mind would have
more to do with it." She shook her head at him, pleasantly, softly,
and lovingly,--but still with a settled purpose of contradiction. "I
have admitted all along," he continued, "that low birth--"

"I have said nothing of low birth!" Here was a point on which there
did not exist full confidence between the mother and son, but in
regard to which the mother was always attempting to reassure the son,
while he would assume something against himself which she would not
allow to pass without an attempt of faint denial.

"That birth low by comparison," he continued, going on with his
sentence, "should not take upon itself as much as may be allowed
to nobility by descent is certain. Though the young prince may be
superior in his gifts to the young shoeblack, and would best show his
princeliness by cultivating the shoeblack, still the shoeblack should
wait to be cultivated. The world has created a state of things in
which the shoeblack cannot do otherwise without showing an arrogance
and impudence by which he could achieve nothing."

"Which, too, would make him black his shoes very badly."

"No doubt. That will have to come to pass any way, because the nobler
employments to which he will be raised by the appreciating prince
will cause him to drop his shoes."

"Is Lord Hampstead to cause you to drop the Post Office?"

"Not at all. He is not a prince nor am I a shoeblack. Though we are
far apart, we are not so far apart as to make such a change essential
to our acquaintance. But I was saying-- I don