'With regard to my history and origin you are altogether mistaken; and
how can I tell whether your bitterness at my previous silence on those
points may not cause you to withdraw your act of courtesy now? But
the gratification of having at last been honest with you may
compensate even for the loss of your respect.

'The matter is a small one to tell, after all. What will you say on
learning that I am not the trodden-down "lady by birth" that you have
supposed me? That my father is not dead, as you probably imagine;
that he is working for his living as one among a peculiarly
stigmatized and ridiculed multitude?

'Had he been a brawny cottager, carpenter, mason, blacksmith, well-
digger, navvy, tree-feller--any effective and manly trade, in short, a
worker in which can stand up in the face of the noblest and daintiest,
and bare his gnarled arms and say, with a consciousness of superior
power, "Look at a real man!" I should have been able to show you
antecedents which, if not intensely romantic, are not altogether
antagonistic to romance. But the present fashion of associating with
one particular class everything that is ludicrous and bombastic
overpowers me when I think of it in relation to myself and your known
sensitiveness. When the well-born poetess of good report melts into.
. .'

Having got thus far, a faint-hearted look, which had begun to show itself
several sentences earlier, became pronounced. She threw the writing into
the dull fire, poked and stirred it till a red inflammation crept over
the sheet, and then started anew:--