'My mother was an English lady,' he added, 'but my father
certainly was not an Englishman. I never had the common
happiness of knowing either of them. I was an orphan before I
understood what it was to have a parent.'

This was said with a pathos, which for the moment stopped the
expression of any further harsh criticism from the lawyer. Mr
Wharton could not instantly repeat his objection to a parentage
which was matter for such melancholy reflections; but he felt at
the same time that as he had luckily landed himself on a positive
and undeniable ground of objection to a match which was
distasteful to him, it would be unwise for him to go to other
matters in which he might be less successful. By doing so, he
would seem to abandon the ground which he had already made good.
He thought it probable that the man might have an adequate
income, and yet he did not wish to welcome him as a son-in-law.
He thought it possible that the Portuguese father might be a
Portuguese nobleman, and therefore one whom he might be driven to
admit to have been some sort of gentleman;--but yet this man who
was now in his presence and whom he continued to scan with the
closest observation, was not what he called a gentleman. The
foreign blood was proved, and that would suffice. As he looked
at Lopez, he thought that he detected Jewish signs, but he was
afraid to make any allusions to religion, lest Lopez should
declare his ancestors had been noted as Christians since St James
first preached in the Peninsula.

'I was educated altogether in England,' continued Lopez, 'till I
was sent to a German university in the idea that the languages of
the Continent are not generally well learned in this country;--I