"You say that because you do not understand. Do you suppose that my name will be allowed to me if you should refuse your cousin's suit? If so, you are very much mistaken. The fight will go on, and as we have not money, we shall certainly go to the wall at last. Why should you not love him? There is no one else that you care for." "No, mamma," she said slowly. "Then, what more can you want?" "I do not know him, mamma." "But you will know him. According to that, no girl would ever get married. Is it not a great thing that you should be asked to assume and to enjoy the rank which has belonged to your mother, but which she has never been able to enjoy?" "I do not think, mamma, that I care much about rank." "Anna!" The mother's mind as she heard this flew off to the young tailor. Had misery so great as this overtaken her after all? "I mean that I don't care so much about it. It has never done us any good." "But if it is a thing that is your own, that you are born to, you must bear it, whether it be in sorrow or in joy; whether it be a blessing or a curse. If it be yours, you cannot fling it away from you. You may disgrace it, but you must still have it. Though you were to throw yourself away upon a chimney-sweeper, you must still be Lady Anna, the daughter of Earl Lovel." "I needn't call myself so." "Others must call you so. It is your name, and you cannot be rid of it. It is yours of right, as my name has been mine of right; and not to assert it, not to live up to it, not to be proud of it, would argue incredible baseness. 'Noblesse oblige.' You have heard that motto, and know what it means. And then would you throw away from you in some childish phantasy all that I have been struggling to win for you during my whole life? Have you ever thought of what my life has been, Anna?" "Yes, mamma." "Would you have the heart to disappoint me, now that the victory is won;--now that it may be made our own by your help? And what is it that I am asking you to do? If this man were bad,--if he were such a one as your father, if he were drunken, cruel, ill-conditioned, or even heavy, foolish, or deformed; had you been told stories to set you against him, as that he had been false with other women, I could understand it. In that case we would at any rate find out the truth before we went on. But of this man we hear that he is good, and pleasant; an excellent young man, who has endeared himself to all who know him. Such a one that all the girls of his own standing in the world would give their eyes to win him." "Let some girl win him then who cares for him." "But he wishes to win you, dearest." "Not because he loves me. How can he love me when he never saw me? How can I love him when I never saw him?" "He wishes to win you because he has heard what you are, and because he knows that by doing so he can set things right which for many years have been wrong." "It is because he would get all this money."