"If he should, I suppose his rights would be as good as another's, and he must keep his name." "In such a case, which is improbable enough, as Miss Mildred has so well observed," put in Tom Wychecombe, "we should have to submit to the _knighthood_, for that comes from the king, who might knight a chimney-sweep, if he see fit; but a question might be raised as to the _name_.

It is bad enough as it is; but if it really got to be _two_ Sir Wycherlys, I think my dear uncle would be wrong to submit to such an invasion of what one might call his individuality, without making some inquiry as to the right of the gentleman to one or both his names.

The result might show that the king had made a Sir Something Nobody." The sneer and spite with which this was uttered, were too marked to escape notice; and both Dutton and his wife felt it would be unpleasant to mingle farther in the discourse.

Still the last, submissive, rebuked, and heart-broken as she was, felt a glow on her own pale cheek, as she saw the colour mount in the face of Mildred, and she detected the strong impulses that urged the generous girl herself to answer.
"We have now known Mr.Wychecombe several months," observed Mildred, fastening her full, blue eye calmly on Tom's sinister-looking face; "and we have never known any thing to cause us to think he would bear a name--or names--that he does not at least think he has a right to." This was said gently, but so distinctly, that every word entered fairly into Tom Wychecombe's soul; who threw a quick, suspicious glance at the lovely speaker, as if to ascertain how far she intended any allusion to himself.

Meeting with no other expression than that of generous interest, he recovered his self-command, and made his reply with sufficient coolness.
"Upon my word, Mrs.Dutton," he cried, laughing; "we young men will all of us have to get over the cliff, and hang dangling at the end of a rope, in order to awaken an interest in Miss Mildred, to defend us when our backs are turned.