was it considered a very great match for you?'
'No; it certainly was not.'
'Then he was not much above you—in riches or rank or anything else?'
'No; we were both very poor; our early days were a struggle.'
'But you were equals from the very beginning—not only in money?'
'Yes; socially we were equals too.'
Gladys turned her face to the fire, and kept it so turned. 'I am rather sorry,' she said at length, and sighed.
'You are sorry? Indeed!'
'Yes, Lady Bligh, and disappointed too; for I'd been hoping to find you'd been ever so much beneath Sir James. Don't you see, if you had been ever so much beneath him, you aren't a bit now; and it would have proved that the wife can become what the husband is, if she isn't that to begin with—and if she tries hard. No—you mustn't interrupt unless it's to send me away. I want you to suppose a case. Look back, and imagine that your own case was the opposite to what it really was. That Sir James was of a very good family. That you were not only not that, but were stupid and ignorant, and a worse
