"He will if you tell him. And we must make a gentleman of him." "My dear Frederic, you can never wash a blackamoor white." "Let us try. Don't you oppose it. It behoves me, for my honour, to show her some regard after what she has done for me." Aunt Julia shook her head, and muttered to herself some further remark about negroes. The inhabitants of the Yoxham rectory,--who were well born, ladies and gentlemen without a stain, who were hitherto free from all base intermarriages, and had nothing among their male cousins below soldiers and sailors, parsons and lawyers, who had successfully opposed an intended marriage between a cousin in the third degree and an attorney because the alliance was below the level of the Lovels, were peculiarly averse to any intermingling of ranks. They were descended from ancient earls, and their chief was an earl of the present day. There was but one titled young lady now among them,--and she had only just won her right to be so considered. There was but one Lady Anna,--and she was going to marry a tailor! "Duty is duty," said aunt Julia as she hurried away. She meant her nephew to understand that duty commanded her to shut her heart against any cousin who could marry a tailor. The lord next attacked aunt Jane. "You wouldn't mind having her here?" "Not if your uncle thought well of it," said Mrs. Lovel. "I'll tell you what my scheme is." Then he told it all. Lady Anna was to be invited to the rectory. The tailor was to be entertained somewhere near on the night preceding his wedding. The marriage was to be celebrated by his uncle in Yoxham Church. Sir William was to be asked to join them. And the whole thing was to be done exactly as though they were all proud of the connection. "Does your uncle know?" asked Mrs. Lovel, who had been nearly stunned by the proposition. "Not quite. I want you to suggest it. Only think, aunt Jane, what she has done for us all!" Aunt Jane couldn't think that very much had been done for her. They were not to be enriched by the cousin's money. They had never been interested in the matter on their own account. They wanted nothing. And yet they were to be called upon to have a tailor at their board,--because Lord Lovel was the head of their family. But the Earl was the Earl; and poor Mrs. Lovel knew how much she owed to his position. "If you wish it of course I'll tell him, Frederic." "I do wish it;--and I'll be so much obliged to you."