"Dearest father, nothing but this was wanting to complete my perfect happiness."
Mr. Effingham kissed his daughter again, and he was then enabled to pursue the conversation with greater composure.
"Powis and I have had a full explanation," he said, "though in order to obtain it, I have been obliged to give him strong encouragement"
"Father!"
"Nay, my love, your delicacy and feelings nave been sufficiently respected, but he has so much diffidence of himself, and permits the unpleasant circumstances connected with his birth to weigh so much on his mind, that I have been compelled to tell him, what I am sure you will approve, that we disregard family connections, and look only to the merit of the individual."
"I hope, father, nothing was said to give Mr. Powis reason to suppose we did not deem him every way our equal."
"Certainly not. He is a gentleman, and I can claim to be no more. There is but one thing in which connections ought to influence an American marriage, where the parties are suited to each other in the main requisites, and that is to ascertain that neither should be carried, necessarily, into associations for which their habits have given them too much and too good tastes to enter into. A woman, especially, ought never to be transplanted from a polished to an unpolished circle; for, when this is the case, if really a lady, there will be a dangerous clog on her affection for her husband. This one great point assured, I see no other about which a parent need feel concern."
"Powis, unhappily, has no connections in this country; or none with whom he has any communications; and those he has in England are of a class to do him credit."
"We have been conversing of this, and he has manifested so much proper feeling that it has even raised him in my esteem. I knew his father's family, and must have known his father, I think, though there were two or three Asshetons of the name of John. It is a highly respectable family of the middle states, and belonged formerly to the colonial aristocracy. Jack Effingham's mother was an Assheton."
"Of the same blood, do you think, sir? I remembered this when Mr. Powis mentioned his father's name, and intended to question cousin Jack on the subject."