“Alice, I hope you are not going to behave foolishly.  I cannot believe for a minute that you would—­a girl brought up as you have been—­so far forget yourself—­would allow yourself to become interested in a perfectly unknown and ignorant and obscure young man.”

“Why, mamma, he is not ignorant; he knows more than any one I ever saw,—­why, he has read piles of books I never even heard of,—­and his family is one of the best and oldest in this country.  His grandfathers or great-grandfathers were both signers of the Decla—­”

“I am not talking about that,” interrupted Mrs. Yorke, hastily.  “I must say you appear to have studied his family-tree pretty closely.”

“Dr. Balsam told me,” interjected Alice.

“Dr. Balsam had very little to talk of.  I am talking of his being unknown.”

“But I believe he will be known some day.  You don’t know how clever and ambitious he is.  He told me—­”

But Mrs. Yorke had no mind to let Alice dwell on what he had told her.  He was too good an advocate.

“Stuff!  I don’t care what he told you!  Alice, he is a perfectly unknown and untrained young—­creature.  All young men talk that way.  He is perfectly gauche and boorish in his manner—­”

“Why, mamma, he has beautiful manners!” exclaimed Alice “I heard a lady saying the other day he had the manners of a Chesterfield.”

“Chester-nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Yorke.

“I think he has, too, mamma.”

“I don’t agree with you,” declared Mrs. Yorke, energetically.  “How would he appear in New York?  Why, he wears great heavy shoes, and his neckties are something dreadful.”

“His neckties are bad,” admitted Alice, sadly.

Mrs. Yorke, having discovered a breach in her adversary’s defences, like a good general directed her attack against it.

“He dresses horribly; he wears his hair like a—­countryman; and his manners are as antiquated as his clothes.  Think of him at the opera or at one of Mrs. Wentworth’s receptions!  He says ‘madam’ and ‘sir’ as if he were a servant.”

“I got after him about that once,” said the girl, reflectively.  “I said that only servants said that.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“Said that that proved that servants sometimes had better manners than their masters.”

“Well, I must say, I think he was excessively rude!” asserted Mrs. Yorke, picking up her fan and beginning to fan rapidly.

“That’s what I said; but he said he did not see how it could be rude to state a simple and impersonal fact in a perfectly respectful way.”

Alice was warming up in defence and swept on.

“He said the new fashion was due to people who were not sure of their own position, and were afraid others might think them servile if they employed such terms.”

“What does he know about fashion?”

“He says fashion is a temporary and shifting thing, sometimes caused by accident and sometimes made by tradesmen, but that good manners are the same to-day that they were hundreds of years ago, and that though the ways in which they are shown change, the basis is always the same, being kindness and gentility.”