“I should like that; it sounds very fascinating, all of it. How it submerges at once, too, all the petty cares and contrivances, perpetually asking, 'Can we do this?' 'Dare we do that?' It makes existence the grand, bold, free thing one dreams it ought to be.” “You 're right there; it does make life very jolly.” “Are _you_ very rich?” asked she, abruptly. “No, by Jove! poor as a church mouse,” said he, laughing at the strangeness of the question, whose sincere simplicity excluded all notion of impertinence. “I'm what they call a younger son, which means one who arrives in the world when the feast is over. I have a brother with a very tidy fortune, if that were of any use to me.” “And is it not the same? You share your goods together, I suppose?” “I should be charmed to share mine with him, on terms of reciprocity,” said Beecher; “but I 'm afraid he 'd not like it.” “So that he is rich, and you poor?” “Exactly so.” “And this is called brotherhood? I own I don't understand it.” “Well, it has often puzzled me too,” said Beecher, laughingly; “but I believe, if I had been born first, I should have had no difficulty in it whatever.” “And papa?” asked she, suddenly,--“what was he,--an elder or a younger son?” It was all that Beecher could do to maintain a decent gravity at this question. To be asked about Grog Davis's parentage seemed about the drollest of all possible subjects of inquiry; but, with an immense effort of self-restraint, he said,-- “I never exactly knew; I rather suspect, however, he was an only child.” “Then there is no title in our family?” said she, inquiringly. “I believe not; but you are aware that this is very largely the case in England. We are not all 'marquises' and 'counts' and 'chevaliers,' like foreigners.” “I like a title; I like its distinctiveness: the sense of carrying out a destiny, transmitting certain traits of race and kindred, seems a fine and ennobling thing; and this one has not, one cannot have, who has no past. So that,” said she, after a pause, “papa is only what you would call a 'gentleman.'” “'Gentleman' is a very proud designation, believe me,” said he, evading an answer. “And how would they address me in England,--am I 'my Lady'?” “No, you are Miss Davis.” “How meanly it sounds,--it might be a governess, a maid.” “When you are married, you take the rank and title of your husband,--a duchess, if he be a duke.” “A duchess be it, then,” said she, in that light, volatile tone she was ever best pleased to employ, while, with a rattling gayety, she went on: “How I should love to be one of those great people you have described to me,--soaring away in all that ideal splendor which would come of a life of boundless cost, the actual and the present being only suggestive of a thousand fancied enjoyments! What glorious visions might one conjure up out of the sportiveness of an untrammelled will! Yes, Mr. Beecher, I have made up my mind,--I 'll be a duchess!”