"'I thought you might.'

"'On what grounds, may I ask?'

"'Conformity of rank; age; pleasing contrast of temper, for he is mild and amiable; harmony of intellectual tastes.'

"'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank."—He is quite above me: compare my grange with his palace, if you please: I am disdained by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age."—We were born in the same year; consequently, he is still a boy, while I am a woman: ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of temper."—Mild and amiable, is he: I——what? Tell me.'

"'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.'

"'And you would mate me with a kid—the Millennium being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an Archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend——? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony of intellectual tastes."—He is fond of poetry, and I hate it——'

"'Do you? That is news.'

"'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme, whenever I am at the Priory or Sir Philip at Fieldhead. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets, or string stanzas fragile as fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those penny-beads were genuine brilliants?'

"'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to a higher standard—of improving his tastes.'