Social position or wealth does not weigh with me,
Mrs. Guinness--not a feather!" earnestly. If he really had meant to
give her a passing reminder that marriage with Kitty would be a step
down the social grade for him, he was thoroughly scared out of his
intention. As he talked, reiterating the same thing again and again,
the heat rose into his neatly-shaved face and little aquiline nose.
Mrs. Guinness observed his agitation with calm triumph. She knew but
one ladder into heaven, and that, short and narrow, was through her
own Church. Kitty was stepping up on a high rung of it. Once the wife
of this good Christian man, and her soul was safe. A sudden vision of
her flitted before her mother in grave but rich attire (fawn-colored
velvet, for instance, for next winter, trimmed with brown fur),
to suit her place as the wife of the wealthy Muller, head of the
congregation and the Reformatory school: she would be instant, too, at
prayer--meetings and Dorcas societies. This was Mrs. Guinness's world,
and she reasoned according to the laws of it. She rejoiced as Hannah
did when she had safely placed her child within the temple of the
Lord.
And yet with that hint of the social position of the Mullers had come
the certainty to her that this marriage could never be. A shadow had
stood suddenly before her--a boy's face, the only one before which
her calm, complacent soul had ever quailed or shrunk.
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