consider all this while it is yet time, because I heard you state that
Miss Ashleigh had a fortune, was what would be here termed an heiress.
And the full consciousness that whatever fame one in my profession may
live to acquire, does not open those vistas of social power and grandeur
which are opened by professions to my eyes less noble in themselves,--that
full consciousness, I say, was forced upon me by certain words of your
own. For the rest, you know my descent is sufficiently recognized as that
amidst well-born gentry to have rendered me no mesalliance to families the
most proud of their ancestry, if I had kept my hereditary estate and
avoided the career that makes me useful to man. But I acknowledge that on
entering a profession such as mine--entering any profession except that of
arms or the senate--all leave their pedigree at its door, an erased or
dead letter. All must come as equals, high-born or low-born, into that
arena in which men ask aid from a man as he makes himself; to them his
dead forefathers are idle dust. Therefore, to the advantage of birth I
cease to have a claim. I am but a provincial physician, whose station
would be the same had he been a cobbler's son. But gold retains its grand
privilege in all ranks. He who has gold is removed from the suspicion
that attaches to the greedy fortune-hunter. My private fortune, swelled
by my savings, is sufficient to secure to any one I married a larger
settlement than many a wealthy squire can make. I need no fortune with a
wife; if she have one, it would be settled on herself. Pardon these
vulgar details. Now, have I made myself understood?"

"Fully," answered the Queen of the Hill, who had listened to me
quietly, watchfully, and without one interruption, "fully; and you have
done well to confide in me with so generous an unreserve. But before I
say further, let me ask, what would be your advice for Lilian, supposing
that you ought not to attend her? You have no trust in Dr. Jones; neither
have I. And Annie Ashleigh's note received to-day, begging me to call,