rom using the rather condescending words
she had formulated. His face was somewhat pale; his mouth was firmly
set, throwing out the chin in a way to make it quite strong; his eyes
were anxious, but steady; his form was very erect, and his shoulders
were very square and straight. He appeared to her older than she had
considered him. It would not do to patronize this man. After greeting
her, he handed her a chair solemnly, and the next moment plunged
straight into his subject. It was so sudden that it almost took her
breath away; and before she knew it he had, with the blood coming and
going in his cheeks, declared his love for her daughter, and asked her
permission to pay her his addresses. After the first gulp or two he had
lost his embarrassment, and was speaking in a straightforward, manly
way. The color had come rushing back into his face, and his eyes were
filled with light. Mrs. Yorke felt that it was necessary to do
something. So, though she felt some trepidation, she took heart and
began to answer him. As she proceeded, her courage returned to her, and
seeing that he was much disturbed, she became quite composed.

She regretted extremely, she said, that she had not foreseen this. It
was all so unexpected to her that she was quite overwhelmed by it. She
felt that this was a lie, and she was not sure that he did not know it.
Of course, it was quite impossible that she could consent to anything
like what he had proposed.

"Do you mean because she is from the North and I am from the South?" he
asked earnestly.

"No; of course not. I have Southern blood myself. My grandmother was
from the South." She smiled at his simplicity.

"Then why?"

This was embarrassing, but she must answer.

"Why, you--we--move in--quite different--spheres, and--ah, it's really
not to be thought of Mr. Keith," she said, half desperately.

He himself had thought of the different spheres in which they moved, but
he had surmounted that difficulty. Though her father, as he had learned,
had begun life as a store-boy, and her mother was not the most learned
person in the world, Alice Yorke was a lady to her finger-tips, and in
her own fine person was the incontestable proof of a strain of gentle
blood somewhere. Those delicate features, fine hands, trim ankles, and
silken hair told their own story.

So he came near saying, "That does not make any difference"; but he
restrained himself. He said instead, "I do not know that I
understand you