“Then,” snapped out her justly indignant parent, “how in the name of Heaven has he prospered?”
“By my refusing him, of course. We should never have suited each other at all; he would have been miserable if I had married him.”
Mr. Fregelius groaned in bitterness of spirit.
“Oh, Stella, Stella,” he cried, “what a disappointment!”
“Why should you be disappointed, father dear?” she asked gently.
“Why? You stand there and ask why, when I hear that my daughter, who will scarcely have a sixpence—or at least very few of them—has refused a young man with between seventeen and eighteen thousand pounds a year—that’s his exact income, for he told me himself, a most estimable churchman, who would have been a pillar of strength to me, a man whom I should have chosen out of ten thousand as a son-in-law——” and he ceased, overwhelmed.
“Father, I am sorry that you are sorry, but it is strange you should understand me so little after all these years, that you could for one moment think that I should marry Mr. Layard.”
“And why not, pray? Are you better born——”
“Yes,” interrupted Stella, whose one pride was that of her ancient lineage.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant better bred and generally superior to him? You talk as though you were of a different clay.”