"In OUR family," he said, "we trace back--by my father, to the
Saxons; by my mother, to the Normans. Lady Janet's family is an
old family--on her side only."
Mercy dropped her embroidery, and looked Horace full in the face.
She, too, attached no common importance to what she had next to
say.
"If I had not been connected with Lady Janet," she began, "would
you ever have thought of marrying me?"
"My love! what is the use of asking? You _are_ connected with
Lady Janet."
She refused to let him escape answering her in that way.
"Suppose I had not been connected with Lady Janet?" she
persisted. "Suppose I had only been a good girl, with nothing but
my own merits to speak for me. What would your mother have said
then?"
Horace still parried the question--only to find the point of it
pressed home on him once more.
"Why do you ask?" he said.
"I ask to be answered," she rejoined. "Would your mother have
liked you to marry a poor girl, of no family--with nothing but
her own virtues to speak for her?"
Horace was fairly pressed back to the wall.
"If you must know," he replied, "my mother would have refused to
sanction such a marriage as that.
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