n John?"

"Because I like somebody else better. If you have got as good a
reason, I won't say another word to you."

"And why don't you take that other person?"

"Because I cannot trust his love; that is why. It is not very kind of
you, opening my sores afresh, when I am trying to heal yours."

"Oh, Lily, am I unkind,--unkind to you, who have been so generous to
me?"

"I'll forgive you all that and a deal more if you will only listen
to me and try to take my advice. Because this major of yours does a
generous thing, which is for the good of you both,--the infinite good
of both of you,--you are to emulate his generosity by doing a thing
which will be for the good of neither of you. That is about it. Yes,
it is, Grace. You cannot doubt that he has been meaning this for some
time past; and of course, if he looks upon you as his own,--and I
dare say, if the whole truth is to be told, he does--"

"But I am not his own."

"Yes you are, in one sense; you have just said so with a great deal
of energy. And if it is so,--let me see, where was I?"

"Oh, Lily, you need not mind where you were."

"But I do mind, and I hate to be interrupted in my arguments. Yes,
just that. If he saw his cow sick, he'd try to doctor the cow in her
sickness. He sees that you are sick, and of course he comes to your
relief."

"I am not Major Grantly's cow."

"Yes, you are."

"Nor his dog, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his,
except--except, Lily, the dearest friend that he has on the face of
the earth. He cannot have a friend that will go further for him than
I will. He will never know how far I will go to serve him. You don't
know his people. Nor do I know them. But I know what they are. His
sister is married to a marquis."

"What has that to do with it?" said Lily, sharply. "If she were
married to an archduke, what difference would that make?"

"And they are proud people--all of them--and rich; and they live with
high persons in the world."

"I didn't care though they lived with the royal family, and had the
Prince of Wales for their bosom friend. It only shows how much better
he is than they are."

"But think what my family is,--how we are situated. When my father
was simply poor I did not care about it, because he has been born and
bred a gentleman. But now he is disgraced. Yes, Lily, he is. I am
bound to say so, at any rate to myself, when I am thinking of Major
Grantly; and I will not carry that disgrace into a