This was a fine sentiment indeed, calculated to penetrate the most callous heart; but it made Katherine glow all over, and then grow chill and pale. She divined what was intended--that there were designs to unite her, now the representative of the Tredgolds, with the heir of the house of Turny. There was no discrepancy of fortune there. Old Turny could table thousand by thousand with Mr. Tredgold, and it was a match that would delight both parties. Why should Katherine have felt so violent a pang of offended pride? Mr. Turny was no better and no worse in origin than she. The father of that family was her father’s oldest friend; the young people had been brought up with “every advantage”--even a year or two of the University for the eldest son, who, however, when he was found to be spending his time in vanities with other young men like himself--not with the sons of dukes and earls, which might have made it bearable--was promptly withdrawn accordingly, but still could call himself an Oxford man. The girls had been to school in France and in Germany, and had learned their music in Berlin and their drawing in Paris. They were far better educated than Katherine, who had never had any instructor but a humble governess at home. How, then, did it come about that the idea of young Turny having the insolence to think of her should have made Katherine first red with indignation, then pale with disgust? I cannot explain it, neither could she to herself; but so it was. We used to hear a great deal about nature’s noblemen in the days of sentimental fiction. But there certainly is such a thing as a natural-born aristocrat, without any foundation for his or her instinct, yet possessing it as potently as the most highly descended princess that ever breathed. Katherine’s grand-father, as has been said, had been a respectable linen-draper, while the Turnys sprung from a house of business devoting itself to the sale of crockery at an adjoining corner; yet Katherine felt herself as much insulted by the suggestion of young Turny as a suitor as if she had been a lady of high degree and he a low-born squire. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.