What noble family but springs from a captain among robbers?
Trade alone can spoil our blood; robbery purifies it.

The robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next.

We may start anew, and vie with even the nobility of France, if we can once enrol but half the Doones upon our lineage." '"I like not to hear you speak of the Doones, as if they were no more than that," I exclaimed, being now unreasonable; "but will you tell me, once for all, sir, how you are my guardian ?" '"That I will do.

You are my ward because you were my father's ward, under the Scottish law; and now my father being so deaf, I have succeeded to that right--at least in my own opinion--under which claim I am here to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you away from scenes and deeds which (though of good repute and comely) are not the best for young gentlewomen.

There spoke I not like a guardian?
After that can you mistrust me ?" '"But," said I, "good Cousin Alan (if I may so call you), it is not meet for young gentlewomen to go away with young gentlemen, though fifty times their guardians.