mine."
But how is it that men worth a woman's loving become so diffident
when they love intensely? Even in ordinary cases of love there is so
ineffable a delicacy in virgin woman, that a man, be he how refined
soever, feels himself rough and rude and coarse in comparison; and while
that sort of delicacy was pre-eminent in this Italian orphan, there
came, to increase the humility of the man so proud and so confident in
himself when he had only men to deal with, the consciousness that his
intellectual nature was hard and positive beside the angel-like purity
and the fairy-like play of hers.

There was a strong wish on the part of Mrs. Morley to bring about the
union of these two. She had a great regard and a great admiration for
both. To her mind, unconscious of all Graham's doubts and prejudices,
they were exactly suited to each other. A man of intellect so cultivated
as Graham's, if married to a commonplace English "Miss," would surely
feel as if life had no sunshine and no flowers. The love of an
Isaura would steep it in sunshine, pave it with flowers. Mrs. Morley
admitted--all American Republicans of gentle birth do admit--the
instincts which lead "like" to match with "like," an equality of blood
and race. With all her assertion of the Rights of Woman, I do not think
that Mrs. Morley would ever have conceived the possibility of consenting
that the richest and prettiest and cleverest girl in the States could
become the wife of a son of hers if the girl had the taint of negro
blood, even though shown nowhere save the slight distinguishing hue of
her finger-nails. So had Isaura's merits been threefold what they were
and she had been the wealthy heiress of a retail grocer, this fair
Republican would have opposed (more strongly than many an English
duchess, or at least a Scotch duke, would do, the wish of a son), the
thought of an alliance between Graham Vane and the grocer's daughter!
But Isaura was a Cicogna, an offspring of a very ancient and very noble
house. Disparities of fortune, or mere worldly position, Mrs. Morley
supremely despised. Here were the great parities of alliance,--parities
in years and good looks and mental culture. So, in short, she in the
invitation given to them had planned for the union between Isaura and
Graham. To this plan she had an antagonist, whom she did not even guess,
in Madame Savarin. That lady, as much attached to Isaura as was Mrs.
Morley herself, and still more desirous of seeing a