that on the morrow nothing should be said before the interview
calculated to disturb the girl's mind. But as they sat together
through the twilight and into the darkness of night, close by the
open window, through which the heavily laden air of the metropolis
came to them, hot with all the heat of a London July day, very many
words were spoken by the Countess. "It will be for you, to-morrow, to
make or to mar all that I have been doing since the day on which you
were born."

"Oh! mamma, that is so terrible a thing to say!"

"But terrible things must be said if they are true. It is so. It is
for you to decide whether we shall triumph, or be utterly and for
ever crushed."

"I cannot understand it. Why should we be crushed? He would not wish
to marry me if this fortune were not mine. He is not coming, mamma,
because he loves me."

"You say that because you do not understand. Do you suppose that my
name will be allowed to me if you should refuse your cousin's suit?
If so, you are very much mistaken. The fight will go on, and as we
have not money, we shall certainly go to the wall at last. Why should
you not love him? There is no one else that you care for."

"No, mamma," she said slowly.

"Then, what more can you want?"

"I do not know him, mamma."

"But you will know him. According to that, no girl would ever get
married. Is it not a great thing that you should be asked to assume
and to enjoy the rank which has belonged to your mother, but which
she has never been able to enjoy?"

"I do not think, mamma, that I care much about rank."

"Anna!" The mother's mind as she heard this flew off to the young
tailor. Had misery so great as this overtaken her after all?

"I mean that I don't care so much about it. It has never done us any
good."

"But if it is a thing that is your own, that you are born to, you
must bear it, whether it be in sorrow or in joy; whether it be a
blessing or a curse. If it be yours, you cannot fling it away from
you. You may disgrace it, but you must still have it. Though you were
to throw yourself away upon a chimney-sweeper, you must still be Lady
Anna, the daughter of Earl Lovel."

"I needn't call myself so."

"Others must call you so. It is your name, and you cannot be rid of
it. It is yours of right, as my name has been mine of right; and not
to assert it, not to live up to it, not to be proud of it, would
argue incredible baseness. 'Noblesse oblige.' You have heard that
motto,