Pray go; you will disturb my mother.' 'Who is this man, then, whose right seems acknowledged ?' asked Richard, in ill-suppressed fury.
'When you address me like a gentleman, such as I used to believe you--' 'May I presume to ask when you ceased to regard me as a gentleman, mistress Dorothy ?' 'As soon as I found that you had learned to despise law and religion,' answered the girl.

'Such a one will hardly succeed in acting the part of a gentleman, even had he the blood of the Somersets in his veins.' 'I thank you, mistress Dorothy,' said the stranger, 'and will profit by the plain hint.

Once more tell me to go, and I will obey.' 'He must go first,' returned Dorothy.
Richard had been standing as if stunned, but now with an effort recovered himself.
'I will wait for you,' he said, and turned away.
'For whom, sir ?' asked Dorothy, indignantly.
'You have refused me the gentleman's name,' answered Richard: 'perhaps I may have the good fortune to persuade himself to be more obliging.' 'I shall not keep you waiting long,' said the young man significantly, as Richard walked away.
To do Richard justice, and greatly he needs it, I must make the remark that such had been the intimacy betwixt him and Dorothy, that he might well imagine himself acquainted with all the friends of her house.

But the intimacy had been confined to the children; the heads of the two houses, although good neighbours, had not been drawn towards each other, and their mutual respect had not ripened into friendship.

Hence many of the family and social relations of each were unknown to the other; and indeed both families led such a retired life that the children knew little of their own relatives even, and seldom spoke of any.
Lady Scudamore, the mother of the stranger, was first cousin to lady Vaughan.