"
_"She_ does not mind that."
"Zoe? Oh, she has got nothing on!"
"Bless me!" cried Vizard. "Godiva _rediviva."_
"Now, Harrington, don't! Of course, I mean nothing to spoil; only her
purple alpaca, and that is two years old. But my blue silk, I can't
afford to ruin _it._ Nobody would give me another, _I_ know."
"What a heartless world!" said Vizard dryly.
"It is past a jest, the whole thing," objected Miss Maitland; "and, now
we are together, please tell me, if you can, either of you, who is this
man? What are his means? I know 'The Peerage,' 'The Baronetage,' and 'The
Landed Gentry,' but not Severne. That is a river, not a family."
"Oh," said Vizard, "family names taken from rivers are never _parvenues._
But we can't all be down in Burke. Ned is of a good stock, the old
English yeoman, the country's pride."
"Yeoman!" said the Maitland, with sovereign contempt.
Vizard resisted. "Is this the place to sneer at an English yeoman, where
you see an unprincely prince living by a gambling-table? What says the
old stave?
"'A German prince, a marquis of France, And a laird o' the North
Countrie; A yeoman o' Kent, with his yearly rent, Would ding 'em out, all
three.
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