"'I know you're proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came.'" He knew the verse by heart. Some impulse stronger than his will or reason prompted him to repeat the last two lines, meaningly, gazing straight into the sparkling, dark-gray eyes with his proud, blue ones: "'A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats of arms.'" The gray eyes, brave as they were, could not bear the meaning gaze of the blue ones. They wavered and fell. The long lashes drooped against the cheeks that flushed rosy red. She shut up the book with an impatient sigh, and said, with an effort at self-possession: "You shall see that I will bring my aunt home to America with me, Captain Lancaster." "Perhaps so; and yet I think she loves England—as much, I dare say, as you do America." "I hope not, for what should we do in that case? I have only her, she has only me, and why should we live apart?" "Do you mean to tell me that you have left behind you no relatives?" he said. [Pg 63] [Pg 63] "I told you I had no one but Aunt West," she said, almost curtly. "And she can scarcely be called your relative. I believe she was only your father's sister-in-law," he said. "That is true," she replied. "Then why go to her at all, since the kinship is but in name, and you would be happier in America?" he asked, with something of curiosity. "Papa wished it," she replied, simply. Then there was a brief silence. Leonora's lashes drooped, with the dew of unshed tears on them. The young face looked very sad in the soft evening light.
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