"Enough! enough!" cried Sir Sidney Delaware, interrupting him as he was going on in his encomiums. "I came here to thank you for what you have done for one of my children--not to hear praises of both, that might make my old eyes overflow. But, as you speak of my son, I must not only confess that I owe you thanks, but an apology which I have promised him to make you, for not calling on you before. In that voluminous catalogue of lies, which, like hackney-coaches on a stand, are ready at the beck of every one, I might find a hundred excuses ready-made to my hand, which you would be bound to receive as current; but my principles do not admit of my making use of them, and when I apologize at all, it must be by telling the truth. Unfortunate circumstances, Mr. Burrel," he added, in a grave and somewhat sad tone, "have placed a painful disparity between the fortune and the station of my family. For myself, I do not covet wealth, neither do my children; but we have never sought, or even admitted the society of any one who was likely to differ from us in our estimation of our own situation." "Although such an apology is far more than I either deserve or could expect," replied Burrel, "yet I own I am glad to find that you did not at all hate me for my own sake. As to my feelings and principles--if, as I hope, this acquaintance stops not here--you will soon find, my dear sir, that I am far too aristocratic in my own nature to dream that wealth can make any addition to rank--far too liberal in my own sentiments to dream that either wealth or rank can make any addition to gentlemanly manners and a gentlemanly mind. Do not mistake me, Sir Sidney Delaware," he added, seeing a slight shade come over the baronet's countenance--"I have every reverence for the institutions of society, and for those grades which society can never be deprived of, without sinking gradually into barbarism of manners, if not barbarism of mind. All I mean to say is, when I pay reverence to rank, it is a tribute I render to society: when I pay reverence to the individual, it is a tribute I offer to virtue, and that tribute will be offered to either, under all circumstances, and at all times; but I have no idea of bowing low to the purse in a man's pocket, or fawning upon the bottle of Lafitte that graces his sideboard."