surprised, sir, that
you should have won hers." The young man as he heard this could only
blush and look foolish. "If I know my girl, neither your money nor
your title would go for anything."

"I think much more of her love, Mr. Boncassen, than I do of anything
else in the world."

"But love, my Lord, may be a great misfortune." As he said this the
tone of his voice was altered, and there was a melancholy solemnity
not only in his words but in his countenance. "I take it that young
people when they love rarely think of more than the present moment.
If they did so the bloom would be gone from their romance. But others
have to do this for them. If Isabel had come to me saying that she
loved a poor man, there would not have been much to disquiet me. A
poor man may earn bread for himself and his wife, and if he failed I
could have found them bread. Nor, had she loved somewhat below her
own degree, should I have opposed her. So long as her husband had
been an educated man, there might have been no future punishment to
fear."

"I don't think she could have done that," said Silverbridge.

"At any rate she has not done so. But how am I to look upon this that
she has done?"

"I'll do my best for her, Mr. Boncassen."

"I believe you would. But even your love can't make her an
Englishwoman. You can make her a Duchess."

"Not that, sir."

"But you can't give her a parentage fit for a Duchess;--not fit at
least in the opinion of those with whom you will pass your life, with
whom,--or perhaps without whom,--she will be destined to pass her
life, if she becomes your wife! Unfortunately it does not suffice
that you should think it fit. Though you loved each other as well as
any man and woman that ever were brought into each other's arms by
the beneficence of God, you cannot make her happy,--unless you can
assure her the respect of those around her."

"All the world will respect her."

"Her conduct,--yes. I think the world, your world, would learn to
do that. I do not think it could help itself. But that would not
suffice. I may respect the man who cleans my boots. But he would be
a wretched man if he were thrown on me for society. I would not give
him my society. Will your Duchesses and your Countesses give her
theirs?"

"Certainly they will."

"I do not ask for it as thinking it to be of more value than that of
others; but were she to become your wife she would be so abnormally
placed as to require it for her comfor