“My dear Sir Lemuel,” said the young man, with some emotion, as he left his seat and came and stood by the banker’s chair, leaning affectionately over him; “when I first met your lovely daughter, I was so deeply impressed by her rare sweetness, gentleness, intelligence—­ah!  Heaven knows what it was!  It was something more than all these.  In a word, I was so deeply impressed by her perfect loveliness, that had I been as really the heir of Lone as I was the Marquis of Arondelle, I should at once have cultivated her further acquaintance, and, before this, have laid my heart and hand, titles and estates, at her feet.”

“Well, well, my boy?  Well, my dear lad, why didn’t you do it?” inquired the banker, with tears rising to his kind eyes.

“I have just told you, because I was a ruined man,” said the marquis with mournful dignity.

“‘A ruined man?’” echoed the banker, with almost angry earnestness. “I know that you are not a ruined man!  And you know, even better than I do, because you have more brains than I have; YOU know that no young man, sound in body and sound in mind, can be ruined by any financial calamity that can fall upon him.  You love my daughter, you say.  Well, then, you have my authority to ask her to be your wife.  There, what do you say?”

The young marquis sat down and covered his face with his hand for one thoughtful moment, and then replied: 

“This is a happiness so unexpected that it seems unreal.  Sir Lemuel, do you really appreciate the fact that I am a man without a shilling that I do not earn by my labor?”

“I really appreciate the fact, and most highly appreciate the fact that you are Marquis of Arondelle, and to be Duke of Hereward—­and that you are personally as noble in nature as you are fortunately noble in descent.  And although my first motive in favoring this marriage is the pure desire for yours and for my daughter’s happiness, still I assure you, my lord, I am keenly alive to its eligibility in a mere worldly point of view.  Your ancient historical title is, (to speak as a man of the world,) much more than an equivalent for my daughter’s expectations.  But it is not, as I said before, as a highly eligible, conventional marriage that I most desire it, but as a marriage that I feel sure will secure the happiness of yourself and my daughter, whom I shall, nevertheless, be very proud to see, some day, Duchess of Hereward.  Come, now, I never saw a gallant young man hesitate so long.  I shall grow angry presently.”

“Sir Lemuel,” said the marquis, with some irrepressible emotion, “were I now really the Duke of Hereward, and the owner of Lone, and were your lovely daughter as dowerless as I am penniless at this moment, and did you give her to me, my deepest gratitude would be due you, and you have it now.  When may I see Miss Levison and put my fate to the test?”