"You don't mean to say, Luella Sealy," said the mother, with what seemed at least indignation, "that you were so unmaidenly as to make the first advances to this young man. If I thought you were capable of doing such a thing I should be ashamed of you. It would be bad enough if he were your equal, and a gentleman, but when he is a mere bank clerk and a person of no position, how you could descend to do so is beyond my comprehension." "Mother," said the daughter, while a quizzical smile lit up her face, "when pa came to see you did you not encourage him, or in some manner give him to understand that his visits were not altogether distasteful to you? From what I have heard pa say, I should rather think you did. Now, ma, I rather liked William Barton; and while I did not tell him so, he seemed in some manner or other to find out my secret, and I have not tried to deceive him." "But, Luella," said her mother,--not replying to her daughter's mischievous reference to her days of romance and love, for, like many other ambitious, scheming mothers, if she ever had such a foolish emotion as love, she had forgotten it, or else she had been led to believe it was all Moonshine; and if a girl only married wealth and position, she thought love would come,--"what is the use of acting so foolishly? If you marry William Barton you will have to leave the set with which you are now associating, and if you degrade yourself by a _mesalliance_ you will drag us down with you." "You had better wait, mother, until he asks me to marry him." "No! I want to talk it over now, and then you will be prepared to act like a sensible girl. If Barton wishes to marry you it is because you have money, and he will bring you nothing in exchange but degradation. How the McWrigglers will sneer if such a thing happens! They schemed and plotted until they got Captain Merton to marry that baby-faced Elaine; and because he is an officer in the English army and the youngest son of a gentleman, they have been putting on airs ever since; and they are now so stuck-up there is scarcely any living for them." "I am sure, ma, they are welcome to him, for I hear he does not use her very kindly when he is in liquor, which is most of the time." "Oh! I guess that is like a great deal of what people say--scandal. I am certain since that alliance they have moved in society into which they could not gain entrance before. Now, if you marry Stanley Ginsling, as he is first cousin to Lord Fitzjinkins, we will have the _entree_ to society to which they dare not aspire; and then the airs of superiority can be on our side, not theirs."