He could not resist saying, with a sneer, when she paused, as if to ask
his sympathy,--

"All this is very fine, belle-mere; and yet I should hardly have thought
that coarse-featured, uncouth limb of the law, who seldom moves without
upsetting a chair, never laughs but the panes rattle in the window,--I
should hardly have thought him the precise person to gratify your pride,
or answer the family ideal of a gentleman and a St. John."

"Gabriel," said Lucretia, sternly, "you have a biting tongue, and it is
folly in me to resent those privileges which our fearful connection gives
you. But this raillery--"

"Come, come, I was wrong; forgive it!" interrupted Varney, who,
dreading nothing else, dreaded much the rebuke of his grim stepmother.

"It is forgiven," said Lucretia, coldly, and with a slight wave of her
hand; then she added, with composure,--

"Long since--even while heiress of Laughton--I parted with mere pride in
the hollow seemings of distinction. Had I not, should I have stooped to
William Mainwaring? What I then respected, amidst all the degradations I
have known, I respect still,--talent, ambition, intellect, and will. Do
you think I would exchange these in a son of mine for the mere graces
which a dancing-master can sell him? Fear not. Let us give but wealth
to that intellect, and the world will see no clumsiness in the movements
that march to its high places, and hear no discord in the laugh that
triumphs over fools. But you have some news to communicate, or some
proposal to suggest."