“A man like that,” he would sometimes say, pointing to the picture of a stern old Cavalier, “is rarely, if ever, met with, and in a little while there will be no living representative of such—­at least not in America, where all social distinctions are rapidly disappearing.  In fact, we have scarcely any thing left, even now, but the shadow of a true aristocracy, and that is only to be found in Virginia.  At the North, mere wealth makes a man a gentleman; and this new invention of these degenerate times is fast being adopted even here in the ‘Old Dominion.’  But it won’t do—­unless a man is born and bred a gentleman, he never can become one.”

It was no use to argue with the rigid old Virginian about the aristocracy of virtue, or the aristocracy of mind; he scouted at the idea, and reiterated, with added emphasis, that only he who was born of gentle blood could be a gentleman.

The family of Mr. Tomlinson, which had consisted of his wife, two sons, and two daughters, was, at the time our story opens, composed of only two members, himself and his youngest child, Edith, now in her nineteenth year.  Death had taken all but one.

Edith, though born and bred a lady, her father observed, with pain, did not set a high value upon the distinction, and at last actually refused to receive the addresses of a young man who came of pure old English blood, and was a thorough gentleman in the eyes of Mr. Tomlinson, because she liked neither his principles, habits, nor general character, while she looked with favour upon the advances of a young attorney, named Denton, whose father, a small farmer in Essex county, had nothing higher than honesty and manly independence of which to boast.

The young gentleman of pure blood was named Allison.  He was the last representative of an old family, and had come into possession, on attaining his majority, of a large landed estate immediately adjoining that owned by Mr. Tomlinson.  The refusal of Edith to receive his addresses aroused in him an unhappy spirit, which he cherished until it inspired him with thoughts of retaliation.  The means were in his hands.  There existed an old, but not legally adjusted question, about the title to a thousand acres of land lying between the estates of Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Allison, which had, more than fifty years before, been settled by the principal parties thereto on the basis of a fair division, without the delay, vexation, expense, and bitterness of a prolonged lawsuit.  By this division, the father of Mr. Tomlinson retained possession of five hundred acres, and the grandfather of Mr. Allison of the other five hundred.  The former had greatly improved the portion into the full possession of which he had come, as it was by far the most beautiful and fertile part of his estate.  His old residence was torn down, and a splendid mansion erected on a commanding eminence within the limits of this old disputed land, at a cost of nearly eighty thousand dollars, and the whole of the five hundred acres gradually brought into a high state of cultivation.  To meet the heavy outlay for all this, other and less desirable portions of the estate were sold, until, finally, only about three hundred acres of the original Tomlinson property remained.