orld when the feast is over. I have a brother
with a very tidy fortune, if that were of any use to me."

"And is it not the same? You share your goods together, I suppose?"

"I should be charmed to share mine with him, on terms of reciprocity,"
said Beecher; "but I 'm afraid he 'd not like it."

"So that he is rich, and you poor?"

"Exactly so."

"And this is called brotherhood? I own I don't understand it."

"Well, it has often puzzled me too," said Beecher, laughingly; "but I
believe, if I had been born first, I should have had no difficulty in it
whatever."

"And papa?" asked she, suddenly,--"what was he,--an elder or a younger
son?"

It was all that Beecher could do to maintain a decent gravity at this
question. To be asked about Grog Davis's parentage seemed about the
drollest of all possible subjects of inquiry; but, with an immense
effort of self-restraint, he said,--

"I never exactly knew; I rather suspect, however, he was an only child."

"Then there is no title in our family?" said she, inquiringly.

"I believe not; but you are aware that this is very largely the case in
England. We are not all 'marquises' and 'counts' and 'chevaliers,' like
foreigners."

"I like a title; I like its distinctiveness: the sense of carrying out
a destiny, transmitting certain traits of race and kindred, seems a fine
and ennobling thing; and this one has not, one cannot have, who has no
past. So that," said she, after a pause, "papa is only what you would
call a 'gentleman.'"

"'Gentleman' is a very proud designation, believe me," said he, evading
an answer.

"And how would they address me in England,--am I 'my Lady'?"

"No, you are Miss Davis."

"How meanly it sounds,--it might be a governess, a maid."

"When you are married, you take the rank and title of your husband,--a
duchess, if he be a duke."

"A duchess be it, then," said she, in that light, volatile tone she was
ever best pleased to employ, while, with a rattling gayety, she went on:
"How I should love to be one of those great people you have described to
me,--soaring away in all that ideal splendor which would come of a life
of boundless cost, the actual and the present being only suggestive of a
thousand fancied enjoyments! What glorious visions might one conjure
up out of the sportiveness of an untrammelled will! Yes, Mr. Beecher, I
have made up my mind,--I 'll be a duchess!"

"But you might have all these as a marchioness, a countess--"

"N