He had received the Quaker's permission to push his suit with Marion, but he did not flatter himself that this would avail him much. He felt that there was a strength in Marion which, as it would have made her strong against her father had she given away her heart without his sanction, so would it be but little moved by any permission coming from him. And there was present to the lover's mind a feeling of fear which had been generated by the Quaker's words as to Marion's health. Till he had heard something of that story of the mother and her little ones, it had not occurred to him that the girl herself was wanting in any gift of physical well-being. She was beautiful in his eyes, and he had thought of nothing further. Now an idea had been put into his head which, though he could hardly realize it, was most painful to him. He had puzzled himself before. Her manner to him had been so soft, so tender, so almost loving, that he could not but hope, could hardly not think, that she loved him. That, loving him, she should persist in refusing him because of her condition of life, seemed to him to be unnatural. He had, at any rate, been confident that, were there nothing else, he could overcome that objection. Her heart, if it were really given to him, would not be able to support itself in its opposition to him upon such a ground of severance as that. He thought that he could talk her out of so absurd an argument. But in that other argument there might be something that she would cling to with persistency. But the Quaker himself had declared that there was nothing in it. "As far as I know," the Quaker had said, "she is as fit to become a man's wife as any other girl." He surely must have known had there been any real cause. Girls are so apt to take fancies into their heads, and then will sometimes become so obstinate in their fancies! In this way Hampstead discussed the matter with himself, and had been discussing it ever since he had walked up and down Broad Street with the Quaker. But if she pleaded her health, he had what her own father had said to use as an argument with which to convince her. If she spoke again of his rank, he thought that on that matter his love might be strong enough as an argument against her,--or perhaps her own.