to him, with her frank, bright, regard, lifting her
face for a caress, and patting both her hands through his arm.
Accustomed to chill and reserved women in his own family, her abandon
had a great charm for him; but perhaps it led him into his error in
holding her still as half a child.

"You have been seeing my enemy?" she said, laughingly. "Your sister does
not like me, does she?"

"Not like you! Why should you think so? She may not like my marrying,
perhaps, because she had decided for me that I should never do so; and
no woman can bear any prophecies she makes to prove wrong."

"Very possibly that may be one reason; but she does not think me good
enough for you."

Her tips curved disdainfully, and Earlscourt caught a glimpse of her in
her fiery mood. He laughed at her where, with her, he had better have
admitted the truth. Beatrice had too much pride to be wounded by it, and
far too much good sense to measure herself by money and station.

"Nonsense, Beatrice; I should have thought you too proud to suppose such
a thing," he said, carelessly.

"It is the truth, nevertheless."

"More foolish she, then; but if you and I do not, what can it signify?"

"Nothing. As long as I am worthy of you in your eyes, what others think
or say is nothing to me. I honor you too much to make the gauge between
us a third person's opinion; or measure you or myself by a few stops
higher or lower in the social ladder. Your sister thinks me below you in
rank, soit! She is right; I am quite ready to admit it; but that I am
your equal in all that makes men and women equal in the sight of Heaven,
I know. When she finds me unworthy of you in thought or deed, then she
may call me beneath you--not till then."

Her cheeks were flushed; he could hear her quick breathings, and in her
vehemence and haughty indignation she picked the petals of her bouquet
de corsage to pieces and flung them away. Another time he would have
thought how well her pride became her, and given her some fond reply.
Just now the thorn rankled as Lady Clive had hoped, and he answered her
gravely, in the tone which it was as unwise to use to her as to prick a
thorough-bred colt with both spurs.

"You are quite right. Were I a king, you would be my equal as long as
your heart was mine, your mind as noble, and your character as unsullied
as I hope them to be now."

She turned on him rapidly with the first indignant look she had ever
given to him.

"_Hope!_ You migh