ore interesting. When are you
going to marry him?"

"In the Spring. Father is going to give me some money and I have the
fortune Grandmother Cahill left me. It has been well invested, and
father told me this morning I was a fairly rich little woman. Basil has
some private fortune, also his stipend--we shall do very well. Basil's
family is one of the finest among the old Boston aristocrats, and he is
closely connected with the English Stanhopes, who rank with the greatest
of the nobility."

"I wish Americans would learn to rely on their own nobility. I am tired
of their everlasting attempts to graft on some English noble family.
No matter how great or clever a man may be, you are sure to read of his
descent from some Scottish chief or English earl."

"They can't help their descent, Ethel."

"They need not pin all they have done on to it. Often father frets me in
the same way. If he wins a difficult case, he does it naturally, because
he is a Rawdon. He is handsome, gentlemanly, honorable, even a perfect
horseman, all because, being a Rawdon, he was by nature and inheritance
compelled to such perfection. It is very provoking, Dora, and if I
were you I would not allow Basil to begin a song about 'the English
Stanhopes.' Aunt Ruth and I get very tired often of the English Rawdons,
and are really thankful for the separating Atlantic."

"I don't think I shall feel in that way, Ethel. I like the nobility; so
does father, he says the Dennings are a fine old family."

"Why talk of genealogies when there is such a man as Basil Stanhope to
consider? Let us grant him perfection and agree that he is to marry
you in the Spring; well then, there is the ceremony, and the wedding
garments! Of course it is to be a church wedding?"

"We shall be married in Basil's own church. I can hardly eat or sleep
for thinking of the joy and the triumph of it! There will be women there
ready to eat their hearts with envy--I believe indeed, Ethel, that every
woman in the church is in love with Basil."

"You have said that before, and I am sure you are wrong. A great many of
them are married and are in love with their own husbands; and the kind
of girls who go to St. Jude's are not the kind who marry clergymen. Mr.
Stanhope's whole income would hardly buy their gloves and parasols."

"I don't think you are pleased that I am going to marry. You must not be
jealous of Basil. I shall love you just the same."

"Under no conditions, Dora, would I