But what these cousins were to turn out no one knew.  They had that rank which gives a man what is equivalent to a start of half a lifetime over his fellows, and they promised well; but they were only boys as yet, and Nature puts forth many a choice blossom and bud that never comes to maturity, or, meeting with blight or canker on the way, turns out poor fruit.  The eldest, a lad in his teens, was traveling on the Continent with a tutor:  the second, a boy who had been always delicate, was at home on account of his health.  George Eildon was intimate with both, and loved them with a love as true as that he bore to Alice Garscube:  it never occurred to him that they had come into the world to keep him out of his inheritance.  He would have laughed at such an idea.  Many people would have said that he was laughing on the wrong side of his mouth:  the worldly never can understand the unworldly.

Mr. Eildon gave Miss Garscube credit for being at least as unworldly as himself:  he believed thoroughly in her genuineness, her fresh, unspotted nature; and, the wish being very strong, he believed that she had a kindness for him.

When he and his hand got home he found it quite able to write her a letter, or rather not so much a letter as a burst of enthusiastic aspiration, asking her to marry him.

She was startled; and never having decided on anything in her life, she carried this letter direct to Lady Arthur.

“Here’s a thing,” she said, “that I don’t know what to think of.”

“What kind of thing, Alice?”

“A letter.”

“Who is it from?”

“Mr. Eildon.”

“Indeed!  I should not think a letter from him would be a complicated affair or difficult to understand.”

“Neither is it:  perhaps you would read it?”

“Certainly, if you wish it.”  When she had read the document she said, “Well I never gave George credit for much wisdom, but I did not think he was foolish enough for a thing like this; and I never suspected it.  Are you in love too?” and Lady Arthur laughed heartily:  it seemed to strike her in a comic light.

“No.  I never thought of it or of him either,” Alice said, feeling queer and uncomfortable.

“Then that simplifies matters.  I always thought George’s only chance in life was to marry a wealthy woman, and how many good, accomplished women there are, positively made of money, who would give anything to marry into our family!”

“Are there?” said Alice.

“To be sure there are.  Only the other day I read in a newspaper that people are all so rich now money is no distinction:  rank is, however.  You can’t make a lawyer or a shipowner or an ironmaster into a peer of several hundred years’ descent.”

“No, you can’t,” said Alice; “but Mr. Eildon is not a peer, you know.”

“No, but he is the grandson of one duke and the nephew of another; and if he could work for it he might have a peerage of his own, or if he had great wealth he would probably get one.  For my own part, I don’t count much on rank or wealth” (she believed this), “but they are privileges people have no right to throw away.”