Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/38

Rh civil war all their possessions had drifted away from them piece by piece, hence, he was a great noble on a slender pittance. It had always been said to him, and of him, as a matter of course, that he would mend his position by espousing a large fortune, and he had been brought up to regard such a transaction in the light of a painful but inevitable destiny.

But although he was now thirty-eight years of age, he had never seen, amongst the many young persons pointed out to him as possessing millions, anyone to whom he could prevail upon himself to sell his old name and title.

The Great Republic inspires, as it is well known, a passion for social and titular distinctions in its enterprising sons and daughters, which is, to the original flunkeyism of the mother country, as a Gloire de Dijon to a dog-rose, as a Reine Claude to a common blue plum. Nor are the pretty virgins whom the Atlantic wafts across, in any way afflicted with delicacy or hesitation if they can but see their way to getting what they want; and they strike the bargain, or their mothers do so for them, with a cynical candour