"I'll try," said the grim Colonel; "but I see it will be hard work.
However, I'll try and save you from a mésalliance."
"A mésalliance, sir? Why, she is a Clifford."
"The deuce she is!"
"As much a Clifford as I am."
"That is news to me."
"Why, one of her parents was a Clifford, and your own sister. And one of mine was an Irish woman."
"Yes; an O'Ryan; not a trader; not a small-coal man."
"Like the Marquis of Londonderry, sir, and the Earl of Durham. Come, father, don't sacrifice your son, and his happiness and his love for you, to notions the world has outlived. Commerce does not lower a gentleman, nor speculation either, in these days. The nobility and the leading gentry of these islands are most of them in business. They are all shareholders, and often directors of railways, and just as much traders as the old coach proprietors were. They let their land, and so do you, to the highest bidder, not for honor or any romantic sentiment, but for money, and that is trade. Mr. Bartley is his own farmer; well, so was Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, and the Queen made him a peer for it—what a sensible sovereign! Are Rothschild and Montefiore shunned for their speculations by the nobility? Whom do their daughters marry? Trade rules the world, and keeps it from stagnation. Genius writes, or paints, or plays Hamlet—for money; and is respected in exact proportion to the amount of money it gets. Charity holds bazars, and sells at one hundred per cent. profit, and nearly every new church is a trade speculation. Is my happiness and hers to be sacrificed to the chimeras and crotchets that everybody in England but you has outlived?"
"All this," replied the unflinching sire, "I have read in the papers, and my son shall not marry the daughter of a trader and cad who has insulted me grossly; but that, I presume, you don't object to."
This stung Walter so that he feared to continue the discussion.