would ever presume to--He was such a modest youth with all his directness and fearlessness. If he had no respect for rank--and that was--yes, she would say the word, _hopeful_--he had, on the other hand, the profoundest respect for the human, and she could not tell how that might in the individual matter operate. Then she fell a-thinking of the difference between Malcolm and any other servant she had ever known. She hated the _servile_. She knew that it was false as well as low: she had not got so far as to see that it was low through its being false. She knew that most servants, while they spoke with the appearance of respect in presence, altered their tone entirely when beyond the circle of the eye: theirs was eye-service, they were men-pleasers, they were servile. She had overheard her maid speak of her as Lady Clem, and that not without a streak of contempt in the tone. But here was a man who touched no imaginary hat while he stood in the presence of his mistress, neither swore at her in the stable-yard. He looked her straight in the face, and would upon occasion speak, not his _mind_, but the truth to her. Even his slight mistress had the conviction that if one dared in his presence but utter her name lightly, whoever he were, he would have to answer to him for it. What a lovely thing was true service!--absolutely divine! But, alas! such a youth would never, could never, dare offer other than such service. Were she even to encourage him as a maiden might, he would but serve her the better--would but embody his recognition of her favor in fervor of ministering devotion. Was it not a recognized law, however, in the relation of superiors and inferiors, that with regard to such matters, as well as others of no moment, the lady--Ah, but for her to take the initiative would provoke the conclusion--as revolting to her as unavoidable to him--that she judged herself his superior--so greatly his superior as to be absolved from the necessity of behaving to him on the ordinary footing of man and woman. What a ground to start from with a husband! The idea was hateful to her. She tried the argument that such a procedure arrogated merely a superiority in social standing, but it made her recoil from it the more. He was so immeasurably her superior that the poor little advantage on her side vanished like a candle in the sunlight, and she laughed herself to scorn. "Fancy," she laughed, "a midge, on the strength of having wings, condescending to offer marriage to a horse!" It would argue the assumption of equality in other and more important things than rank, or at least the confidence that her social superiority not only counterbalanced the difference, but left enough over to her credit to justify her initiative. And what a miserable fiction that money and position had a right to the first move before greatness of living fact--that _having_ had the precedence of being! That Malcolm should imagine such _her_ judgment! No, let all go--let himself go