an name?"

"I think not. I am sure he never has." But he had, though it had
passed by her at the moment without attention. "It all came from
him so suddenly. And yet I expected it. But it was too sudden for
Christian names and pretty talk. I do not even know what his name
is."

"Plantagenet;--but we always call him Silverbridge."

"Plantagenet is very much prettier. I shall always call him
Plantagenet. But I recall that. You will not remember that against
me?"

"I will remember nothing that you do not wish."

"I mean that if,--if all the grandeurs of all the Pallisers could
consent to put up with poor me, if heaven were opened to me with a
straight gate, so that I could walk out of our republic into your
aristocracy with my head erect, with the stars and stripes waving
proudly round me till I had been accepted into the shelter of the
Omnium griffins,--then I would call him--"

"There's one Palliser would welcome you."

"Would you, dear? Then I will love you so dearly. May I call you
Mary?"

"Of course you may."

"Mary is the prettiest name under the sun. But Plantagenet is so
grand! Which of the kings did you branch off from?"

"I know nothing about it. From none of them, I should think. There is
some story about a Sir Guy who was a king's friend. I never trouble
myself about it. I hate aristocracy."

"Do you, dear?"

"Yes," said Mary, full of her own grievances. "It is an abominable
bondage, and I do not see that it does any good at all."

"I think it is so glorious," said the American. "There is no such
mischievous nonsense in all the world as equality. That is what
father says. What men ought to want is liberty."

"It is terrible to be tied up in a small circle," said the Duke's
daughter.

"What do you mean, Lady Mary?"

"I thought you were to call me Mary. What I mean is this. Suppose
that Silverbridge loves you better than all the world."

"I hope he does. I think he does."

"And suppose he cannot marry you, because of his--aristocracy?"

"But he can."

"I thought you were saying yourself--"

"Saying what? That he could not marry me! No, indeed! But that under
certain circumstances I would not marry him. You don't suppose that
I think he would be disgraced? If so I would go away at once, and
he should never again see my face or hear my voice. I think myself
good enough for the best man God ever made. But if others think
differently, and those others are so closely concerned with him,