"Don't you see--oh, can't you see," she asked, "that it is because of these very things that I love him? How can I separate his past from what he is to-day? How can I say that I would have this or that different--his birth, his childhood, his struggle--when all these have helped to make him the man I love? Who else have I ever known that could compare with him for a minute? You wanted me to marry George Bolingbroke, but what has he ever done to prove what he was worth?" "Sally, Sally," said Miss Mitty, sternly, "he had no need to prove it. It was proved centuries before his birth. The Bolingbrokes proved themselves to their king before this was a country--" "Well, I'm not his king," rejoined Sally, scornfully, "so it wasn't proved to me. I ask something more." "More, Sally?" "Yes, more, Aunt Mitty, a thousand times and ten thousand times. What do I care for a dead arm that fought for a dead king? Both are dust to-day, and I am alive. No, no, give me, not honour and loyalty that have been dead five hundred years, but truth and courage that I can turn to to-day,--not chivalric phrases that are mere empty sound, but honesty and a strong arm that I can lean on." Miss Matoaca's head had dropped as if from weariness over her thin breast, which palpitated under the piece of old lace, like the breast of a wounded bird. Then, as the girl stopped and caught her breath sharply from sheer stress of feeling, the little lady looked up again and straightened herself with a gesture of pride. "Do not make the mistake, Sally," she said, "of thinking that a humble birth means necessarily greater honesty than a high one. Generations of refinement are the best material for character-building, and you might as easily find the qualities you esteem in a gentleman of your own social position." "I might, Aunt Matoaca; but, as a matter of fact, have I? Until you have seen a man fight can you know him? Is family tradition, after all, as good a school as the hard world? A life like Ben's does not always make a man good, I know, but it has made him so. If this were not true--if any one could prove to me that he had been false or cruel to any living creature--man, woman, or animal--I'd give him up to-day and not break my heart--" It was true, I knew it as she spoke, and I could have knelt to her. "You are blind, Sally, blind and rash as your mother before you," returned Miss Mitty. "No, Aunt Mitty, it is you who are blind--who see by the old values that the world has long since outgrown--who think you can assign a place to a man and say to him, 'You belong there and cannot come out of it.' But, oh, Aunt Matoaca, surely you, who have sacrificed so much for what you believe to be right,--who have placed principle before any claims of blood, surely you will uphold me--" "My child, my child," replied the poor lady, with a sob, "I placed principle first, but never emotion--never emotion."