er must end then and there. She had asked him one question, and only
one, in the course of that interview, and he could not answer her: "Mr.
Forrest, what welcome would your mother, your sister, extend to me, a
working-girl?"

Forrest said he really hadn't consulted them; he was seeking a wife for
himself, not for the family. He said that once they knew her they would
honor and love her as she deserved. But that wouldn't do. Miss Wallen
had seen something of society leaders, and had formed her own opinion as
to the law of caste. She had seen Robertson's charming play, too, and
had her own views as to the matrimonial joys in store for its heroine.
She had asked herself whether she would submit to being either tolerated
or patronized by people who had wealth and position, to be sure, but not
one whit more pride or principle, nor, for that matter, refinement, than
she had. Down in the bottom of her brave heart was the craving of the
woman to be loved for herself, to be appreciated for her true worth, but
she believed that people in high position would not and could not
accept one of her antecedents and connections, and she would have no
concealment whatever. "Knowing me just as I am, just as I have been,
knowing my brother and his people, you know well yours could not welcome
me."

And Forrest knew even more. Divining one cause of Jeannette's refusal,
he had told the whole story to his mother in the longest letter he had
ever written,--and sorely he missed his typewriter in doing it,--and
that letter proved a shock. The Forrests had built upon the story of his
engagement to the beauty and heiress Miss Allison, and had long been
awaiting his announcement to write the glowing letters of welcome, but
here was a thunderbolt. Floyd had fallen in love with a working-girl, a
shop-girl, a nobody, and actually wished his mother and sister to send
gushing letters expressive of their approval and assurance of loving
welcome. It was preposterous. They had expected a Florence and were told
to be content with a Jenny. It was absurd in Floyd to point out that
forty years ago Miss Allison's father was a peanut-peddler and Miss
Wallen's a professor. Forty years in this country made vast changes.
Floyd was simply pelting them with some of his ridiculous theories about
the common people, their rights and wrongs. Lincoln, not Washington, was
Floyd's ideal of the good and great and grand type of the American, and
it had spoiled him. All this