And so he walked slowly backwards and forwards through his garden, meditating these things painfully enough.

CHAPTER VIII

MATRIMONIAL PROSPECTS

It will of course be remembered that Mary’s interview with the other girls at Greshamsbury took place some two or three days subsequently to Frank’s generous offer of his hand and heart.  Mary had quite made up her mind that the whole thing was to be regarded as a folly, and that it was not to be spoken of to any one; but yet her heart was sore enough.  She was full of pride, and yet she knew she must bow her neck to the pride of others.  Being, as she was herself, nameless, she could not but feel a stern, unflinching antagonism, the antagonism of a democrat, to the pretensions of others who were blessed with that of which she had been deprived.  She had this feeling; and yet, of all the things that she coveted, she most coveted that, for glorying in which, she was determined to heap scorn on others.  She said to herself, proudly, that God’s handiwork was the inner man, the inner woman, the naked creature animated by a living soul; that all other adjuncts were but man’s clothing for the creature; all others, whether stitched by tailors or contrived by kings.  Was it not within her capacity to do as nobly, to love as truly, to worship her God in heaven with as perfect a faith, and her god on earth with as leal a troth, as though blood had descended to her purely through scores of purely born progenitors?  So to herself she spoke; and yet, as she said it, she knew that were she a man, such a man as the heir of Greshamsbury should be, nothing would tempt her to sully her children’s blood by mating herself with any one that was base born.  She felt that were she Augusta Gresham, no Mr Moffat, let his wealth be what it might, should win her hand unless he too could tell of family honours and a line of ancestors.

And so, with a mind at war with itself, she came forth armed to do battle against the world’s prejudices, those prejudices she herself loved so well.

And was she thus to give up her old affections, her feminine loves, because she found that she was a cousin to nobody?  Was she no longer to pour out her heart to Beatrice Gresham with all the girlish volubility of an equal?  Was she to be severed from Patience Oriel, and banished—­or rather was she to banish herself—­from the free place she had maintained in the various youthful female conclaves within that parish of Greshamsbury?

Hitherto, what Mary Thorne would say, what Miss Thorne suggested in such and such a matter, was quite as frequently asked as any opinion from Augusta Gresham—­quite as frequently, unless when it chanced that any of the De Courcy girls were at the house.  Was this to be given up?  These feelings had grown up among them since they were children, and had not hitherto been questioned among them.  Now they were questioned by Mary Thorne.  Was she in fact to find that her position had been a false one, and must be changed?