received, and you never will, so high an honor as you have in Ishmael’s love.  It is a crown of glory to your life.  You are ambitious!  Well, wait for him; give him a few short years and he will attain honors, not hereditary, but all his own.  He will reach a position that the proudest woman may be proud to share; and his wife shall take a higher rank among American matrons than the wife of a mere nobleman can reach in England.  And his untitled name, like that of Caesar, shall be a title in itself.”

“Bee!  Bee! you wring my heart in two.  You drive me mad.  It cannot be, I tell you!  It can never be.  He may rise—­there is no doubt but that he will!  But let him rise ever so high, I cannot be his wife—­his wife!  Horrible!  I came of a race of which all the men were brave, and all the women pure!  And he—­”

“Is braver than the bravest man of your race! purer than the purest woman!” interrupted Bee fervently.

“He is the child of shame, and his heritage is dishonor!  He bears his mother’s maiden name, and she was—­the scorn of his sex and the reproach of ours!  And this is the man you advise me, Claudia Merlin, whose hand is sought in marriage by the heir of one of the oldest earldoms in England, to marry!  Bee, the insult is unpardonable!  You might as well advise me to marry my father’s footman! and better, for Powers came at least of honest parents!” said Claudia, speaking in the mad, reckless, defiant way in which those conscious of a bad argument passionately defend their point.

For a few moments Bee seemed speechless with indignation.  Then she burst forth vehemently: 

“It is false! as false as the Father of Falsehood himself!  When thorns produce figs, or the deadly nightshade nectarines; when eaglets are hatched in owls’ nests and young lions spring from rat holes, then I may believe these foul slanders of Ishmael and his parents.  Shame on you, Claudia Merlin, for repeating them!  You have shown me much evil in your heart to-night; but nothing so bad as that!  Ishmael is nature’s gentleman!  His mother must have been pure and lovely and loving! his father good and wise and brave! else how could they have given this son to the world!  And did you forget, Claudia, when you spoke those cruel words of him, did you forget that only a little while ago you admitted that you loved him, and that all which was best in your nature approved that love?”

“No, I did not and do not forget it!  It was and it is true!  But what of that?  I may not be able to help adoring him for his personal excellence!  But to be his wife—­the wife of a—­Horrible!”

“Have you forgotten, Claudia, that only a few minutes ago you said that you could not conceive of a diviner happiness than to be the beloved wife of Ishmael?”