"Jem Gunning is not very cultivated, I admit," said Mrs. Planter, authoritatively, as though cultivation and she were inseparable; "but he is very amiable."
"I don't think Grace cares for amiability alone," laughed her brother.
"Well, but—he has something else—one of our greatest partis!"
"That wouldn't affect her a bit. She is a queer girl."
"Looks to an alliance with your aristocracy, I conclude?"
He laughed again. "That is the last thing she would think of. I believe, Mrs. Planter, you think a great deal more of that in America than we do in England."
"Is that so? Well, I always say to Mr. Planter there's nothing like your aristocracy, Sir Mordaunt. I don't hold much to foreign nobility, but English, when one has once seen them in their home—ah! they are so very—"
"Right you are, Mrs. Planter. But hasn't foreign nobility a considerable value among you, too? Look at the fuss they made in New York with that young Marquis de Tréfeuille."
"Well, I always told my daughter that he did not amount to much, though his patent of nobility dates from Louis XV. Clare does not care for foreigners, anyway."
"I'm glad you don't count us as foreigners. After all, we have the same blood, haven't we? If we were Scotch, we might be relations. It is such rot, that jealousy between the two countries."