correlated with the English honesty which never permitted them to mistake
themselves for even the lowest of the nobility. They went out last, and
they did not come in first, ever.

The invitations, upon these conditions, might have gone on indefinitely,
but they did not imply a future for the young girl in whom the interests
of her parents centred. After being so long a little girl, she had become
a great girl, and then all at once she had become a young lady. They had
to ask themselves, the mother definitely and the father formlessly,
whether they wished their daughter to marry an Englishman, and their
hearts answered them, like true Republican hearts, Not an untitled
Englishman, while they saw no prospect of her getting any other. Mrs.
Pasmer philosophised the case with a clearness and a courage which gave
her husband a series of twinges analogous to the toothache, for a man
naturally shrinks from such bold realisations. She said Alice had the
beauty of a beauty, and she had the distinction of a beauty, but she had
not the principles of a beauty; there was no use pretending that she had.
For this reason the Prince of Wales's set, so accessible to American
loveliness with the courage of its convictions, was beyond her; and the
question was whether there was money enough for a younger son, or
whether, if there was, a younger son was worth it.

However this might be, there was no question but there was now less money
than there had been, and a great deal less. The investments had not
turned out as they promised; not only had dividends been passed, but
there had been permanent shrinkages. What was once an amiable competency
from the pooling of their joint resources had dwindled to a sum that
needed a careful eye both to the income and the outgo. Alice's becoming a
young lady had increased their expenses by the suddenly mounting cost of
her dresses, and of the dresses which her mother must now buy for the