We should never have suited each other at all; he would have been miserable if I had married him." Mr.Fregelius groaned in bitterness of spirit.
"Oh, Stella, Stella," he cried, "what a disappointment!" "Why should you be disappointed, father dear ?" she asked gently.
"Why?
You stand there and ask why, when I hear that my daughter, who will scarcely have a sixpence--or at least very few of them--has refused a young man with between seventeen and eighteen thousand pounds a year--that's his exact income, for he told me himself, a most estimable churchman, who would have been a pillar of strength to me, a man whom I should have chosen out of ten thousand as a son-in-law----" and he ceased, overwhelmed.
"Father, I am sorry that you are sorry, but it is strange you should understand me so little after all these years, that you could for one moment think that I should marry Mr.Layard." "And why not, pray?
Are you better born----" "Yes," interrupted Stella, whose one pride was that of her ancient lineage.
"I didn't mean that.

I meant better bred and generally superior to him?
You talk as though you were of a different clay." "Perhaps the clay is the same," said Stella, "but the mind is not." "Oh, there it is again, spiritual and intellectual pride, which causes you to set yourself above your fellows, and in the end will be your ruin.

It has made a lonely woman of you for years, and it will do worse than that.

It will turn you into an old maid--if you live," he added, as though shaken by some sudden memory.
"Perhaps," said Stella, "I am not frightened at the prospect.

I daresay that I shall have a little money and at the worst I can always earn a living; my voice would help me to it, if nothing else does.