A Struggle for a Ring — page 109: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SISTER AND WIFE CONTRASTED. 105 all he had a perfect right to please himself. No one could disinherit him; he would go home and tell them of his marriage, and he would ask—this is what made him shud- der, now that he remembered it—he would ask if Ailie might remain with them at Roseneath while he was abroad with his regiment. She would then—being so quick and so clever—she would catch their tone and manner—she would adopt their language and habits—she would imitate them and grow like them, with all their charm of grace and refinement. ‘That had been his first idea; now he . shuddered at it; what was more, he felt quite certain that if the proud Duke of Claverdon had any idea that there was such a mesaliiance in the family, he would never marry — his sister Linda. He thanked Heaven now that he had said nothing about it; now he vowed to himself that he would keep his secret while he lived. They should never —_— laugh at him and call him Don Quixote—he would keep ‘e. his Quixotism to himself. And yet all his sympathies were with them ; he thought as they thought, he spoke as they spoke, he despised low marriages in others; he said to himself that the motive of his marriage redeemed it and . made it noble. He had married for honors sake—the “i honor of a woman; they married to add to their own | honor, their own rank and position. ‘‘T am the noblest Roman of them all,” he said to him- self, ‘‘though I have married a dancing-master’s daugh- ter, | He saw no way now of declaring his marriage. For himself, he might bear his mother’s scorn, his sister's well- bred wonder, his father’s hot anger, the contempt of his friends, but if he avowed his marriage he knew that the -duke would never marry Linda, That proudest of men would never marry the sister-in-law of a dancing-master’s €omicbooks.com _