“Class me among the dreamers.  Nor will I believe that whatever is true and just is impracticable.  Does redder blood flow in the veins of the child cradled under a silken canopy, than in those of one rocked in a kneading-trough?”

“You have profited to some purpose by the French lessons of our father,” said Bernard, bitterly.  “Principles like these may yet produce as much confusion in our family on a small scale, as they did in France on a mighty theatre.”

“You are losing yourself in the clouds, dear brother.  But there can be no danger in following the guidance of one so wise and experienced as our father, nor does it become you to speak slightingly of any opinion he may adopt.”

“I did not mean to do so.  I should be the last one to do so, though I cannot always agree with him.  But you take an unfair advantage of the little excitement I feel, to put me in the wrong.  Do you think I can look on without being painfully interested, when I see my only sister about to throw herself away upon this obscure stranger, for you cannot conceal it from me that you love him?”

“Throw myself away!  Obscure stranger!  You are unkind William.  Love him! it will be time enough to grant my love when it is asked for.  It does not become me, perhaps, to say it, but Mr. Pownal is not here to answer for himself, and for that reason I will defend him.  There lives not the woman who might not be proud of the love of so noble and pure a heart.  But you are not in a humor to hear reason,” she added, rising, “and I will leave you until your returning good sense shall have driven away suspicions equally unfounded and unjust.”

“Stay, Anne, stop, sister,” cried Bernard, as with a heightened color she hastened out of the room.  “She is too much offended,” he said to himself, “to heed me, and I must wait for a more favorable opportunity to renew the conversation.  I have seen this fancy gradually coming on, and, fool that I was, was afraid to speak for fear of making things worse.  I thought it might be only a passing whim, like those which flutter twenty times through girls’ silly heads before they are married, and was unwilling to treat it as of any consequence.  But does Anne mean to deceive me?  It is not at all like her.  She never did so before.  No, she has courage enough for anything, and is incapable of deception.  But these foolish feelings strangely affect young women and—­young men, too.  She must, herself, be deceived.  She cannot be acquainted with the state of her own heart.  Yet it may not have gone so far that it cannot be stopped.  I had other plans for her, nor will I give them up.  Father! mother!  Pooh! nothing can be done with them.  He would not see her lip quiver or a tear stand in her eye, if it could be prevented at the expense of half his fortune, and mother always thinks both perfection.  No, if anything is to be done it must be with Anne herself, or Pownal, perhaps.  Yet I would not make the little minx unhappy.  But to be the brother-in-law of the son of an insane basket-maker!  It is too ridiculous.”