“But,” said Rosamond, after a moment’s silence, “but you attribute more than I deserve to my delicacy and generosity: I ought not to let you think me so much better than I really am. I had some other motives: you will think them very foolish--very ridiculous--perhaps wrong; but you are so kind and indulgent to me, mother, that I will tell you all my follies. I do not like to marry a man who is not a hero--you are very good not to laugh, Caroline.” “Indeed, I am too seriously interested at present to laugh,” said Caroline. “And you must be sensible,” continued Rosamond, “that I could not, by any effort of imagination, or by any illusion of love, convert a man of Mr. Gresham’s time of life and appearance, with his wig, and sober kind of understanding, into a hero.” “As to the wig,” replied Mrs. Percy, “you will recollect that both Sir Charles Grandison and Lovelace wore wigs; but, my dear, granting that a man cannot, in these days, be a hero in a wig, and granting that a hero cannot or should not have a sober understanding, will you give me leave to ask, whether you have positively determined that none but heroes and heroines should live, or love, or marry, or be happy in this mortal world?” “Heaven forbid!” said Rosamond, “particularly as I am not a heroine.” “And as only a few hundred millions of people in the world are in the same condition,” added Mrs. Percy. “And those perhaps, not the least happy of human beings,” said Caroline. “Be that as it may, I think it cannot be denied that Mr. Gresham has, in a high degree, one of the qualities which ought to distinguish a hero.” “What?” said Rosamond, eagerly. “Generosity,” replied Caroline; “and his large fortune puts it in his power to show that quality upon a scale more extended than is usually allowed even to the heroes of romance.” “True--very true,” said Rosamond, smiling: “generosity might make a hero of him if he were not a merchant--a merchant!--a Percy ought not to marry a merchant.” “Perhaps, my dear,” said Mrs. Percy, “you don’t know that half, at least, of all the nobility in England have married into the families of merchants; therefore, in the opinion of half the nobility of England, there can be nothing discreditable or derogatory in such an alliance.”