"I do not quite understand you." "Let me explain, then;" and her involuntary gesture seeming to have brought back all honest dignity and manly pride, he faced her, once more himself.

"It is right, Miss March, that you should know who and what I am, to whom you are giving the honour of your kindness.

Perhaps you ought to have known before; but here at Enderley we seemed to be equals--friends." "I have indeed felt it so." "Then you will the sooner pardon my not telling you--what you never asked, and I was only too ready to forget--that we are not equals--that is, society would not regard us as such--and I doubt if even you yourself would wish us to be friends." "Why not ?" "Because you are a gentlewoman and I am a tradesman." The news was evidently a shock to her--it could not but be, reared as she had been.

She sat--the eye-lashes dropping over her flushed cheeks--perfectly silent.
John's voice grew firmer--prouder--no hesitation now.
"My calling is, as you will soon hear at Norton Bury, that of a tanner.
I am apprentice to Abel Fletcher--Phineas's father." "Mr.Fletcher!" She looked up at me--a mingled look of kindliness and pain.
"Ay, Phineas is a little less beneath your notice than I am.

He is rich--he has been well educated; I have had to educate myself.