"I had not heard that the Duke of Piermont had a sister," she faltered; "I am altogether astonished that you should advocate such a union--of course you are aware that I have not a drop of noble blood in my veins." "Alfred says you have?" rejoined the lady, laughing enjoyably at her evident astonishment; "he has told me as often as there are legs on a centipede that you're the noblest woman he ever met in all his born days. And you must know that Alfred is a boy of penetration; he has been years on years traveling and doing every London season, (he's got rid of his Irish tongue entirely--more shame to him)! and he has had plenty to choose from. And I'm quite willing to take his taste in the matter of the duchess of our house, dear, so you can't ever fling up to me that I didn't welcome you body and bones, mavourneen." "Is his grace on board then?" "Yes. The boy has been in shockingly low spirits for some time, and I made him shut up bonny Glenfarron House, and take me out to America for a tour; and sure I found that we had left the old sod and its troubles, to accompany the trouble across the water. We hadn't been a day on board until he was thrown into lockjaw, or fits, by that little vision of a Chevalier, or whatever they call him, jabbering about Miss Walsingham; and since then it's a queer life I've led walking the deck, under the stars, with him, for all the world as if he was my lover, only that his talk's about you. I'll tell you what it is, Miss Margaret, darling! he's bound to you, body and soul, and I'll think it a burning shame if you turn from him to any other man that breathes." "I thank you both for this generous proposal," murmured Margaret. "But what I told him before, I can only repeat now--our paths lie in different directions, and cannot be brought together. Let him keep to his higher station, as I intend to keep to my lower one." "A fig for all the stations in Christendom! The boy doesn't care _that_ for them," snapping her fingers. "He wouldn't look at Lady Juliana Ducie, although she was as good as offered to him by the old marquis two or three times. But Alfred is a boy of old-fashioned notions, and won't look at a pretty face, though backed by lands and titles, that can't show him something better than that. Faith! I thought the boy was demented when he told me that the lovely Juliana Ducie, that everybody was so pleased at, was a 'false-tongued, smooth-faced hypocrite, who would ruin her best friend for her own advantage.' I was sure enough he'd have to eat his own words some time, but sure, now, what will ye say to hear that he was right?