a right to tell her so, and made it his duty to lay before her the
probability of an obstacle. That his mother did not like the
alliance had to be braved, for a man must leave father and mother
and cleave to his wife--a saying commonly by male presumption
inverted. Mercy's love he believed such that she would, without a
thought, leave the luxury of her father's house for the mere plenty
of his. That it would not be to descend but to rise in the true
social scale he would leave her to discover. Had he known what Mr.
Palmer was, and how his money had been made, he would neither have
sought nor accepted his acquaintance, and it would no more have been
possible to fall in love with one of his family than to covet one of
his fine horses. But that which might, could, would, or should have
been, affected in no way that which was. He had entered in
ignorance, by the will of God, into certain relations with "the
young woman," as his mother called her, and those relations had to
be followed to their natural and righteous end.

Talking together over possibilities, Mr. Peregrine Palmer had agreed
with his wife that, Mercy being so far from a beauty, it might not
be such a bad match, would not at least be one to be ashamed of, if
she did marry the impoverished chief of a highland clan with a
baronetcy in his pocket. Having bought the land cheap, he could
afford to let a part, perhaps even the whole of it, go back with his
daughter, thus restoring to its former position an ancient and
honourable family. The husband of his younger daughter would then be
head of one of the very few highland families yet in possession of
their ancestral acres--a distinction he would owe to Peregrine
Palmer! It was a pleasant thought to the kindly, consequential,
common little man. Mrs. Palmer, therefore, when the chief called
upon her, received him with more than her previous cordiality.