t an improbable degree of
success in his profession may make him. The case is this: the son of
a working-man in my parish who may or may not be able to buy me up--a
youth who has not yet advanced so far into life as to have any income
of his own deserving the name, and therefore of his father's degree as
regards station--wants to be engaged to you. His family are living
in precisely the same spot in England as yours, so throughout this
county--which is the world to us--you would always be known as the wife
of Jack Smith the mason's son, and not under any circumstances as
the wife of a London professional man. It is the drawback, not the
compensating fact, that is talked of always. There, say no more. You may
argue all night, and prove what you will; I'll stick to my words.'

Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the window with large
heavy eyes and wet cheeks.

'I call it great temerity--and long to call it audacity--in Hewby,'
resumed her father. 'I never heard such a thing--giving such a
hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me as he did.
Naturally you were deceived as well as I was. I don't blame you at all,
so far.' He went and searched for Mr. Hewby's original letter. 'Here's
what he said to me: "Dear Sir,--Agreeably to your request of the 18th
instant, I have arranged to survey and make drawings," et cetera. "My
assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith,"--assistant, you see he called him, and
naturally I understood him to mean a sort of partner. Why didn't he say
"clerk"?'

'They never call them clerks in that profession, because they do not
write. Stephen--Mr. Smith--told me so. So that Mr. Hewby simply used the
accepted word.'

'Let me speak, please, Elfride! My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will
leave London by the early train to-morrow morning...MANY THANKS FOR YOUR
PROPOSAL TO ACCOMMODATE HIM...YOU MAY PUT EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and
may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church architecture."
Well, I repeat that Hewby ought to be ashamed of himself for making so
much of a poor lad of that sort.'

'Professional men in London,' Elfride argued, 'don't know anything about
their clerks' fathers and mothers. They have assistants who come to
their offices and shops for years, and hardly even know where they
live. What they can do--what profits they can bring the firm--that's all
London men care about. And that is helped in him by his faculty of being
uniformly pleasant.'

'Uniform pl