“Such a strange name!  Is it a Scotch name?”

“She is an Italian.”

“Harry Sandal!  What a shame!”

“Don’t you think God made Italians as well as Englishmen?”

“That is not the question.  God made Indians and negroes and all sorts of people.  But he set the world in races, as he set races in families.  He told the Jews to keep to themselves.  He was angry when they intermarried with others.  It always brought harm.  What kind of a person is an Italian?  They are papists, I know.  The Pope of Rome is an Italian.  O Harry, Harry, Harry!  It will kill father and mother.  But perhaps, as you met her in Edinburgh, she is a Protestant.  The Scotch are all Protestants.”

“Beatrice is a Roman Catholic, a very strict Roman Catholic.  I had to marry her in a Romish church.”  He said the words rather defiantly, for Charlotte’s attitude offended him; and he had reached that point when it was a reckless pleasure to put things at their worst.

“Then I am ashamed of you.  The dear old rector!  He married father and mother; he christened and confirmed you; you might be sure, that if you could not ask him to marry you, you had no business to marry at all.”

“You said her face was like an angel’s, and that you would love her, Charlotte.”

“Oh, indeed!  But I did not think the angel was an Italian angel and a Roman-Catholic angel.  Circumstances alter cases.  You, who have been brought up a good Church-of-England gentleman, to go over to the Pope of Rome!”

“I have not gone over to the Pope of Rome.”

“All the same, Harry; all the same.  And you know how father feels about that.  Father would fight for the Church quicker than he would fight for his own house and land.  Why! the Sandals got all of their Millom Estate for being good Protestants; for standing by the Hanoverian line instead of those popish Stuarts.  Father will think you have committed an act of treason against both church and state, and he will be ashamed to show his face among the Dale squires.  It is too bad! too bad for any thing!” and she covered her face, and cried bitterly.

“She is so lovely, so good”—­

“Nonsense!  Were there no lovely English girls? no good English girls?  Emily is ten times lovelier.”

“You know what you said.”

“I said it to please you.”

“Charlotte!”

“Yes, I did,—­at least, in a great measure.  It is easy enough to call a pretty girl an angel; and as for my promise to love your wife, of course I expected you would choose a wife suitable to your religion and your birth.  Suppose you selected some outlandish dress,—­an Italian brigand’s, for instance,—­what would the neighboring gentlemen think of you?  It would be an insult to their national costume, and they would do right to resent it.  Well, being who and what you are, you have no right to bring an Italian woman into Seat-Sandal.  It is an insult to every woman in the county, and they will make you feel it.”