"I will not dispute the correctness of your principles in the main, Mr. Grahame, but I hope you do not think that all Lilian's fine acquaintances as you call them, would be so unjust in their judgment as to think the less of her for her love of you, or to undervalue you on account of your position in life."
"No sir—no sir—I don't think so of all—but I want Lilian to see this life without even one little cloud upon it—such a cloud as the being looked down upon, though it were by people she didn't greatly admire, would make. We have our pride too, sir, and we want Lilian to try for herself whether our friendship, with all its good and its bad, be worth keeping. She is too good and affectionate, we know, to shake off old friends that love her, even if they become troublesome—but we will draw ourselves off, and then she will be free to come back to us or not, as she pleases. Now, sir, tell me frankly, if you think me wrong."
"Not wrong in principle, as I said before, Mr. Grahame, but—excuse me—you required me to be frank—would it not have been better to have made this withdrawal gradually and quietly, in such a manner that Lilian would not have noticed it, instead of giving her the pain of this abrupt severance of the ties between you?"
"A great deal better, sir," said Mr. Grahame, coloring with wonderful feeling, and fixing his clear, keen eye full on Mr. Trevanion,—"a great deal better if I wished to sever those ties—a great deal better if I would have Lilian believe that we had grown cold and indifferent to her. But, my dear child," and he turned to her, and taking both her hands, spoke very earnestly—"believe me, when I tell you, that you will find few among those who see you every day, that love you so warmly as the friends who have loved you from your birth, and who now stand away from you only because they will not be in the way of what the world considers higher fortunes for you if you desire them. To leave you free to choose for yourself, is the strongest proof of love we could give you, and I repeat, when you have tried all that this new life has to give you—tried it for six months—if your heart still turns with its old love to those early friends, you will give them joy indeed."
Mr. Grahame paused, but neither Mr. Trevanion nor Lilian attempted to reply to him for some minutes—at length she raised her eyes, and said,
"You did not think of this when I left you—what has changed your mind—I will not say your heart—towards me?"
"You are right not to say our hearts, Lilian; but, indeed, even my mind has not been changed—I thought then as I think now—but I could not persuade others of our family to think with me. Now, however, they all feel that they cannot keep up their old friendly intercourse with you without mortification to themselves, and pain to you. And, as I said before, we were none of us willing to withdraw from that intercourse without giving you our reasons for it, lest you should think we had grown indifferent to you."
Mr. Grahame soon departed, leaving Lilian saddened and Mr. Trevanion perplexed by his visit. "Singular old man!" this gentleman exclaimed to himself more than once, in reflecting on all that Mr. Grahame had said; so difficult is it for those whose minds have been forced into the strait forms of conventionalism to comprehend the dictates of untrammelled common sense, on points which that conventionalism undertakes to control. One thing at least Mr. Trevanion did comprehend—that on the succeeding six months depended Lilian's choice of her position and associates for life.
"So far Mr. Grahame is right Lilian," he said to her, "you cannot have a place at once in two such different spheres as his and ours. I always knew that to be impossible."
"You called my father friend," said Lilian, with unusual boldness.