“Oh, no! no!” exclaimed Miss Forsythe, with another access of timidity. “I shouldn't take the responsibility of being against you, or--or otherwise. It is very manly in you to come to me, and I am sure I--we all wish nothing but your own happiness. And so far as I am concerned--” “Then I have your permission?” he asked, eagerly. “My permission, Mr. Lyon? why, it is so new to me, I scarcely realized that I had any permission,” she said, with a little attempt at pleasantry. “But as her aunt--and guardian, as one may say--personally I should have the greatest satisfaction to know that Margaret's destiny was in the hands of one we all esteem and know as we do you.” “Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Lyon, coming forward and seizing her hand. “But you must let me say, let me suggest, that there are a great many things to be thought of. There is such a difference in education, in all the habits of your lives, in all your relations. Margaret would never be happy in a position where less was accorded to her than she had all her life. Nor would her pride let her take such a position.” “But as my wife--” “Yes, I know that is sufficient in your mind. Have you consulted your mother, Mr. Lyon?” “Not yet.” “And have you written to any one at home about my niece?” “Not yet.” “And does it seem a little difficult to do so?” This was a probe that went even deeper than the questioner knew. Mr. Lyon hesitated, seeing again as in a vision the astonishment of his family. He was conscious of an attempt at self-deception when he replied: “Not difficult, not at all difficult, but I thought I would wait till I had something definite to say.” “Margaret is, of course, perfectly free to act for herself. She has a very ardent nature, but at the same time a great deal of what we call common sense. Though her heart might be very much engaged, she would hesitate to put herself in any society which thought itself superior to her. You see I speak with great frankness.” It was a new position for Mr. Lyon to find his prospective rank seemingly an obstacle to anything he desired. For a moment the whimsicality of it interrupted the current of his feeling. He thought of the probable comments of the men of his London club upon the drift his conversation was taking with a New England spinster about his fitness to marry a school-teacher. With a smile that was summoned to hide his annoyance, he said, “I don't see how I can defend myself, Miss Forsythe.” “Oh,” she replied, with an answering smile that recognized his view of the humor of the situation, “I was not thinking of you, Mr. Lyon, but of the family and the society that my niece might enter, to which rank is of the first importance.” “I am simply John Lyon, Miss Forsythe. I may never be anything else. But if it were otherwise, I did not suppose that Americans objected to rank.”