t the man is in
every way respectable and well-behaved. I hear that he is an educated
man, with culture much higher than is generally found in the state of
life which he has till lately filled, and that he is a man of high
feeling and noble purpose. The manner in which he has been persistent
in his attachment to your daughter is in itself evidence of this. And
I think that your ladyship is bound to remember that the sphere of
life in which he has hitherto been a labourer, would not have been so
humble in its nature had not the means which should have started him
in the world been applied to support and succour your own cause. I am
well aware of your feelings of warm gratitude to the father; but I
think you should bear in mind, on the son's behalf, that he has been
what he has been because his father was so staunch a friend to your
ladyship." There was very much more of it, all expressing the opinion
of Sir William that the Countess should at once open her doors to
Daniel Thwaite.

The reader need hardly be told that this was wormwood to the
Countess. It did not in the least touch her heart and had but little
effect on her purpose. Gratitude;--yes! But if the whole result of
the exertion for which the receiver is bound to be grateful, is to
be neutralised by the greed of the conferrer of the favour,--if all
is to be taken that has been given, and much more also,--what ground
will there be left for gratitude? If I save a man's purse from a
thief, and then demand for my work twice what that purse contained,
the man had better have been left with the robbers. But she was told,
not only that she ought to accept the tailor as a son-in-law, but
also that she could not help herself. They should see whether she
could not help herself. They should be made to acknowledge that she
at any rate was in earnest in her endeavours to preserve pure and
unspotted the honour of the family.

But what should she do? That she should put on a gala dress and a
smiling face and be carried off to church with a troop of lawyers and
their wives to see her daughter become the bride of a low journeyman,
was of course out of the question. By no act, by no word, by no
sign would she give aught of a mother's authority to nuptials so
disgraceful. Should her daughter become Lady Anna Thwaite, they two,
mother and daughter, would never see each other again. Of so much at
any rate she was sure. But could she be sure of nothing beyond that?
She could at an