He was in love with her, he offered her what he most valued, his political chances and his code of fine sentiments; it was not his blame if she found both little better than husks.
Her attention flew for a moment to the place she had left, only to return to a dismal reflection.

Was she not, after all, in the same galley as her rejected suitor?
What place had she in the frank good-fellowship of Etterick, or what part had they in the inheritance of herself and her kind?
Had not Mr.Stocks--now sitting glumly by her side--spoken the truth?
We are only what we are made, and generations of thrift and seriousness had given her a love for the strenuous and the unadorned which could never be cast out.

Here was a quandary--for at the same instant there came the voice of the heart defiantly calling her to the breaking of idols..