“Nay!” answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion, he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had just before yielded in himself,--“Nay!--after all, am I not of their own blood?--Do I not come from the elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal luxury and with higher hopes?--And my mother--my poor mother--did she not to the last maintain our birthright--her own honour?--Has not accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true station?--Is it not for us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not, in fact, the person who descends, who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the heritage of the living?” The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone contrary to his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his listener--and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he replied, “If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger reason to struggle against this unhappy affection.” “I have been conscious of that, sir,” replied the young man, mournfully. “I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to face the obstacles! My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it. Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago.” “It is true!” said the guardian; “and the conduct of that brother is, in fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper name!--never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect yourself by marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that cause, if that cause alone, would reject your suit.” The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the other grasped his guardian’s arm convulsively, as if to check him from proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.