hand; 'will you persuade me that this young man has never been
at college?'

'I have never been at college, but--'

'Ay, ay,' said the postilion, 'but--'

'I have been to the best schools in Britain, to say nothing of a
celebrated one in Ireland.'

'Well, then, it comes to the same thing,' said the postilion, 'or perhaps
you know more than if you had been at college--and your governor--'

'My governor, as you call him,' said I, 'is dead.'

'And his borough interest?'

'My father had no borough interest,' said I; 'had he possessed any, he
would perhaps not have died, as he did, honourably poor.'

'No, no,' said the postilion, 'if he had had borough interest, he
wouldn't have been poor, nor honourable, though perhaps a right
honourable. However, with your grand education and genteel manners, you
made all right at last by persuading this noble young gentlewoman to run
away from boarding-school with you.'

'I was never at boarding-school,' said Belle, 'unless you call--'

'Ay, ay,' said the postilion, 'boarding-school is vulgar, I know: I beg
your pardon, I ought to have called it academy, or by some other much
finer name--you were in something much greater than a boarding-school.'

'There you are right,' said Belle, lifting up her head and looking the
postilion full in the face by the light of the charcoal fire, 'for I was
bred in the workhouse.'

'Wooh!' said the postilion.

'It is true that I am of good--'

'Ay, ay,' said the postilion, 'let us hear--'

'Of good blood,' continued Belle; 'my name is Berners, Isopel Berners,
though my parents were unfortunate. Indeed, with respect to blood, I
believe I am of better blood than the young man.'

'There you are mistaken,' said I; 'by my father's side I am of Cornish
blood, and by my mother's of brave French Protestant extraction. Now,
with respect to the blood of my father--and to be descended well on the
father's side is the principal thing--it is the best blood in the world,
for the Cornish blood, as the proverb says--'

'I don't care what the proverb says,' said Belle; 'I say my blood is the
best--my name is Berners, Isopel Berners--it was my mother's name, and is
better, I am sure, than any you bear, whatever that may be; and though
you say that the descent on the father's side is the principal thing--and
I know why you say so,' she added with some excitement--'I say that
descent on the mother's side is of most account, because the mother--'

'Jus