The family question was far too serious a question to be lightly treated A becoming shadow of solemnity stole over his manner.

He looked as if it was Sunday, and he was just stepping into church.
"In OUR family," he said, "we trace back--by my father, to the Saxons; by my mother, to the Normans.

Lady Janet's family is an old family--on her side only." Mercy dropped her embroidery, and looked Horace full in the face.

She, too, attached no common importance to what she had next to say.
"If I had not been connected with Lady Janet," she began, "would you ever have thought of marrying me ?" "My love! what is the use of asking?
You _are_ connected with Lady Janet." She refused to let him escape answering her in that way.
"Suppose I had not been connected with Lady Janet ?" she persisted.
"Suppose I had only been a good girl, with nothing but my own merits to speak for me.

What would your mother have said then ?" Horace still parried the question--only to find the point of it pressed home on him once more.
"Why do you ask ?" he said.
"I ask to be answered," she rejoined.