“His speciality, no doubt, is the sugar-cane.  Well, I shall consider him very mean if he doesn’t let me have my sugar cheap, in return for my kindness.”

“You are sure you are going to be kind then.”

“Yes. if he is a good fellow.”

“He is a good fellow, and I am not worthy of him, for I behaved shamefully to him.  He has written me a very gentlemanly letter, and he said, with perfect straightforwardness, that he did at one time believe himself to have quite got over his attachment to me, but—­but he had been a good deal alone, had found time to think, and, in short, it had come on again; and he hoped he was now able to offer me not only a very agreeable home, but a husband more worthy of me.  That’s a mistake, for I behaved ill to him, and he well, and always well, to me.  In short, he begged me to come over to New York in September:  he is obliged to be there on business himself at that time.  He said, taking the chances, and in the hope of my coming, he would name the very line of steamers I ought to come by; and if I could but agree to it, he would meet me and marry me, and take me back with him.”

“Somehow, Laura, I seem to gather that you do not consider him quite your equal.”

“No, I suppose, as I am a Melcombe——­”

“A Melcombe!” repeated Valentine with bitter scorn.  “A Melcombe!” Laura felt the colour rush over her face with astonishment.  She knew rather than saw that the little glimpse she had had of his own self was gone again; but before she could decide how to go on, he said, with impatience and irritation, “I beg your pardon; you were going to say——­”

“That he is in a fairly good position now,” she proceeded, quoting her lover’s language; “and he has hopes that the head of the firm, who is a foreigner, will take him into partnership soon.  Besides, as his future home is in America (and mine, if I marry him), what signifies his descent?”

“No,” murmured Valentine with a sigh. “‘The gardener Adam and his wife’ (Tennyson).”

“And,” proceeded Laura, “nothing can be more perfectly irreproachable than his people are—­more excellent, honest, and respectable.”

“Whew!” cried Valentine with a bitter laugh, “that is a great deal to say of any family.  Well, Laura, if you’re sure they won’t mind demeaning themselves by an alliance with us——­”

“Nonsense, Valentine; I wish you would not be so odd,” interrupted Laura.

“I have nothing to say against it.”

“Thank you, dear Valentine; and nobody else has a right to say anything, for you are the head of the family.  It was very odd that you should have pitched upon that particular line to quote.”

“Humph!  And as I have something of my own, more than three thousand pounds in fact——­”

“And Melcombe,” exclaimed Laura.

“Ah, yes, I forgot.  But I was going to say that you, being the only other Melcombe, you know, and you and I liking one another, I wish to act a brotherly part by you; and therefore, when you have bought yourself a handsome trousseau and a piano, and everything a lady ought to have, and your passage is paid for, I wish to make up whatever is left of your five hundred pounds to a thousand, that you may not go almost portionless to your husband.”