You dare not ask your mother to receive a servant's daughter as her own child.

Your jest is in bad taste, Ronald." "It is no jest," he replied.

"We Earles are always terribly in earnest.

I have promised to marry Dora Thorne, and, with your permission, I intend to keep my word." An angry flush rose to Lord Earle's face, but he controlled his impatience.
"In any case," he replied, quietly, "you are too young to think of marriage yet.

If you had chosen the daughter of a duke, I should, for the present, refuse." "I shall be twenty in a few months," said Ronald, "and I am willing to wait until then." Lady Earle laid her white jeweled hand on her son's shoulder, and said, gently: "My dear Ronald, have you lost your senses?
Tell me, who is Dora Thorne ?" She saw tears shining in his eyes; his brave young face touched her heart.