ould live to record it!--that little snob, with not two ideas in his
head, who couldn't, if put to it, tell you who his own grandfather was,
and who owed his tolerance in society to his banking account, refused an
alliance with the refined intellect and the blue blood of one of the
proud, courtly, historic Falkensteins! He'd been tutored by his wife,
and said his lesson properly, refusing to sanction "any such connexion;"
of course his niece must act for herself.

Waldemar bowed himself out with all his haughtiest high-breeding; he
knew Valerie _would_ act for herself, but the insult cut him to the
quick. He threw himself into the train, and went down to Fairlie, his
governor's place in Devonshire, determining to sacrifice his pride, and
ask his father to aid him in his effort for freedom. In the drawing-room
he found his sister Virginia, a cold, proud woman of the world. She
scarcely let him sit down and inquire for the governor, before she
pounced on him.

"Waldemar, I have heard the most absurd report about you."

"Most reports are absurd."

"Yes, of course; but this is too ridiculous. What do you think it is?"

"I am sure I can't say."

"That you are going to marry."

"Well?"

"Well! You take it very quietly. If you were going to make a good match
I should be the first to rejoice; but they say that you are engaged to
some niece of that odious, vulgar parvenu, Cashranger, the brewer; that
little bold thing who wrote that play that made a noise a little while
ago. Pray set me at rest at once, and say it is not true."

"I should be very sorry if it were not."

His sister looked at him in haughty horror. "Waldemar! you must be mad.
If you were rich, it would be intolerable to stoop to such a connexion;
but, laden with debts as you are, to disgrace the family with such----"

"Disgrace?" repeated Falkenstein, scornfully. "She would honor any
family she entered."

"You talk like a boy of twenty," said Virginia, impatiently. "To load
yourself with a penniless wife when you are on the brink of ruin--to
introduce to _us_ the niece of a low-bred, pushing plebeian--to give
your name to a bold manoeuvring girl, who has the impudence to take her
stand before a crowded theatre----"

"Hold!" broke out Waldemar, fiercely: "you might thank Heaven, Virginia,
if you were as frank-hearted and as free from guile as she is. She
thinks no ill, and therefore she is not, like you fine ladies, on the
constant qui vive lest it