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"She is the wife of a silk-merchant."

Lady Marian surveyed him with a wide-eyed amazement, not unmixed with contempt.

"A mercer's wife to attend the daughter of Lord Howard de Winstanley? Nay, hadst thou not better call the kitchen scullion to keep her company? Friend, I like thee well, but I fear thou art a stranger to good company."

Macfarren, thoroughly abashed, remained silent, while a burning blush came to his face. The unmerited scorn of this lovely girl was hard to bear.

"Dost thou not know some one of rank to keep me company?" she asked, presently, with some petulance.

Macfarren ran hastily over in his mind a half-dozen names of the wives of titled and untitled Englishmen then in New York whom he had met in society. No, none of them would do; and, besides, he could not take the liberty.

"Dear lady," he said, after an embarrassed pause, "I myself am a commoner. I have no title except that of a gentleman and an honest man. I can not stoop to ask favors of those with whom my acquaintance is but slight. I offer you the protection of people like myself. You will not want for respect among them."