monplace profligacy. Accept that
as the first reason why I spurn him."

"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"

"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His
intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second
stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his
tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."

"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on
your part."

"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"

"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?"

"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."

"May I ask if you expect some man of title--some peer of the realm--to
demand your hand?"

"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."

"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your
eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy."

"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."

"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I
dare you to sully our name by a _mesalliance_!"

"_Our_ name! Am _I_ called Sympson?"

"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be
trifled with!"

"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could
you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?"

"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled
alike.

"Why? What shadow of power have _you_ over me? Why should I fear you?"

"Take care, madam!"

"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved
to esteem--to admire--to _love_."

"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"

"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I
feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."

"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"

"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable."

"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or--or----"

"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"

"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."

"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and
the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit
me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only
a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"

"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands
and eyes.

"Never to th