to think
of--of such a marriage under his present circumstances."

"Why, mamma? Why should it be ruin to him?"

"Why, my dear? Do you think that a wife with a titled name can be of
advantage to a young man who has not only got his bread to earn, but
even to look out for a way in which he may earn it?"

"If there be nothing to hurt him but the titled name, that difficulty
shall be easily conquered."

"Dearest Clara, you know what I mean. You must be aware that a girl
of your rank, and brought up as you have been, cannot be a fitting
wife for a man who will now have to struggle with the world at every
turn."

Clara, as this was said to her, and as she prepared to answer,
blushed deeply, for she felt herself obliged to speak on a matter
which had never yet been subject of speech between her and her
mother. "Mamma," she said, "I cannot agree with you there. I may have
what the world calls rank; but nevertheless we have been poor, and I
have not been brought up with costly habits. Why should I not live
with my husband as--as--as poorly as I have lived with my mother? You
are not rich, dear mamma, and why should I be?"

Lady Desmond did not answer her daughter at once; but she was not
silent because an answer failed her. Her answer would have been ready
enough had she dared to speak it out. "Yes, it is true; we have been
poor. I, your mother, did by my imprudence bring down upon my head
and on yours absolute, unrelenting, pitiless poverty. And because I
did so, I have never known one happy hour. I have spent my days in
bitter remorse--in regretting the want of those things which it has
been the more terrible to want as they are the customary attributes
of people of my rank. I have been driven to hate those around me
who have been rich, because I have been poor. I have been utterly
friendless because I have been poor. I have been able to do none of
those sweet, soft, lovely things, by doing which other women win
the smiles of the world, because I have been poor. Poverty and rank
together have made me wretched--have left me without employment,
without society, and without love. And now would you tell me that
because I have been poor you would choose to be poor also?" It would
have been thus that she would have answered, had she been accustomed
to speak out her thoughts. But she had ever been accustomed to
conceal them.

"I was thinking quite as much of him as of you," at last she said.
"Such an engagement to you woul