thousands?'

'Oh, everything, if I were you,' said Lady Anne.

'Rank, to begin with,' said Lady Catharine.

'Still my old objection--bought rank is but a shabby thing.'

'But there is so little difference made between bought and hereditary
rank in these days,' said Lady Catharine.

'I see a great deal still,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'so much, that I would
never buy a title.'

'A title without birth, to be sure,' said Lady Anne, 'would not be so
well worth buying; and as birth certainly is not to be bought--'

'And even birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said Miss
Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the politeness,
all the noble sentiments, all the magnanimity--in short, all that should
grace and dignify high birth.'

'Admirable!' said Lord Colambre. Grace Nugent smiled.

'Lord Colambre, will you have the goodness to put my mother in mind I
must go away?'

'I am bound to obey, but I am very sorry for it,' said his lordship.

'Are we to have any dancing to-night, I wonder?' said Lady Catharine.