he would make further inquiry how that might be. He
was inclined to think that there might be a decision which should be
absolute, even though that decision should be reached by compromise
between the now contending parties.

Then the Countess had said her word about Daniel Thwaite the son, and
Thomas Thwaite the father had heard it with ill-concealed anger. To
fight against an Earl on behalf of the Earl's injured wife had been
very sweet to him, but to be checked in his fight because he and his
were unfit to associate with the child of that injured wife, was very
bitter. And yet he had sense to know that what the Countess said to
him was true. As far as words went, he admitted the truth; but his
face was more eloquent than his words, and his face showed plainly
his displeasure.

"It is not of you that I am speaking," said the Countess, laying her
hand upon the old man's sleeve.

"Daniel is, at any rate, fitter than I," said the tailor. "He has
been educated, and I never was."

"He is as good as gold. It is not of that I speak. You know what I
mean."

"I know very well what you mean, Lady Lovel."

"I have no friend like you, Mr. Thwaite;--none whom I love as I do
you. And next to you is your son. For myself, there is nothing that
I would not do for him or you;--no service, however menial, that I
would not render you with my own hands. There is no limit to the
gratitude which I owe you. But my girl is young, and if this burden
of rank and wealth is to be hers,--it is proper that she do honour to
it."

"And it is not honourable that she should be seen speaking--to a
tailor?"

"Ah,--if you choose to take it so!"

"How should I take it? What I say is true. And what you say is true
also. I will speak to Daniel." But she knew well, as he left her,
that his heart was bitter against her.

The old man did speak to his son, sitting with him up in the bed-room
over that which the Countess occupied. Old Thomas Thwaite was a
strong man, but his son was in some respects stronger. As his father
had said of him, he had been educated,--or rather instructed; and
instruction leads to the power of thinking. He looked deeper into
things than did his father, and was governed by wider and greater
motives. His father had been a Radical all his life, guided thereto
probably by some early training, and made steadfast in his creed by
feelings which induced him to hate the pretensions of an assumed
superiority. Old Thwaite could no