Grace blushed, looked pleased, delighted even, and yet surprised. It is unnecessary to explain the causes of the three first expressions of her emotions; but the last may require a short examination. Nothing but time and a change of circumstances, can ever raise a province or a provincial town to the independent state of feeling that so strikingly distinguishes a metropolitan country, or a capital. It would be as rational to expect that the inhabitants of the nursery should disregard the opinions of the drawing-room, as to believe that the provincial should do all his own thinking. Political dependency, moreover, is much more easily thrown aside than mental dependency. It is not surprising, therefore, that Grace Van Cortlandt, with her narrow associations, general notions of life, origin, and provincial habits, should be the very opposite of Eve, in all that relates to independence of thought, on subjects like those that they were now discussing. Had Grace been a native of New England, even, she would have been less influenced by the mere social rank of the baronet than was actually the case; for, while the population of that part of the Union feel more of the general subserviency to Great Britain than the population of any other portion of the republic, they probably feel less of it, in this particular form, from the circumstance that their colonial habits were less connected with the aristocratical usages of the mother country. Grace was allied by blood, too, with the higher classes of England, as, indeed, was the fact with most of the old families among the New York gentry; and the traditions of her race came in aid of the traditions of her colony, to continue the profound deference she felt for an English title. Eve might have been equally subjected to the same feelings, had she not been removed into another sphere at so early a period of life, where she imbibed the notions already mentioned--notions that were quite as effectually rooted in her moral system, as those of Grace herself could be in her own. "This is a strange way of viewing the rank of a baronet, Eve!" Grace exclaimed, as soon as she had a little recovered from the confusion caused by the personal allusion. "I greatly question if you can induce Sir George Templemore to see his own position with your eyes." "No, my dear; I think he will be much more likely to regard, not only that, but most other things, with the eyes of another person. We will now talk of more agreeable things, however; for I confess, when I do dwell on titles, I have a taste for the more princely appellations; and that a simple _chevalier_ can scarce excite a feeling that such is the theme." "Nay, Eve," interrupted Grace, with spirit, "an _English_ baronet _is_ noble. Sir George Templemore assured me that, as lately as last evening. The heralds, I believe, have quite recently established that fact to their own satisfaction."