"Do not suppose that I regard poverty as a fault. It is not necessary that you should marry a girl with any fortune." "I suppose not, Uncle Scroope." "But I understand that this young lady is quite beneath yourself in life. She lives with her mother in a little cottage, without servants,--" "There is a servant." "You know what I mean, Fred. She does not live as ladies live. She is uneducated." "You are wrong there, my lord. She has been at an excellent school in France." "In France! Who was her father, and what?" "I do not know what her father was;--a Captain O'Hara, I believe." "And you would marry such a girl as that;--a Roman Catholic; picked up on the Irish coast,--one of whom nobody knows even her parentage or perhaps her real name? It would kill me, Fred." "I have not said that I mean to marry her." "But what do you mean? Would you ruin her;--seduce her by false promises and then leave her? Do you tell me that in cold blood you look forward to such a deed as that?" "Certainly not." "I hope not, my boy; I hope not that. Do not tell me that a heartless scoundrel is to take my name when I am gone." "I am not a heartless scoundrel," said Fred Neville, jumping up from his seat. "Then what is it that you mean? You have thought, have you not, of the duties of the high position to which you are called? You do not suppose that wealth is to be given to you, and a great name, and all the appanages and power of nobility, in order that you may eat more, and drink more, and lie softer than others. It is because some think so, and act upon such base thoughts, that the only hereditary peerage left in the world is in danger of encountering the ill will of the people. Are you willing to be known only as one of those who have disgraced their order?" "I do not mean to disgrace it." "But you will disgrace it if you marry such a girl as that. If she were fit to be your wife, would not the family of Lord Kilfenora have known her?" "I don't think much of their not knowing her, uncle." "Who does know her? Who can say that she is even what she pretends to be? Did you not promise me that you would make no such marriage?" He was not strong to defend his Kate. Such defence would have been in opposition to his own ideas, in antagonism with the scheme which he had made for himself. He understood, almost as well as did his uncle, that Kate O'Hara ought not to be made Countess of Scroope. He too thought that were she to be presented to the world as the Countess of Scroope, she would disgrace the title. And yet he would not be a villain! And yet he would not give her up! He could only fall back upon his scheme. "Miss O'Hara is as good as gold," he said; "but I acknowledge that she is not fit to be mistress of this house."