good American to tell the girl he loves that his father was a hired man."

He smiled, but there was little mirth and less color in his face.

"What absurdity!" cried Moya. Then glancing at him she added quickly,
"_My_ father is a hired man. Most fathers who are worth anything are!"

"My father was because he came of that class. His father was one before
him. His mother took in tailoring in the village where he was born. He had
only the commonest common-school education and not much of that. At eleven
he worked for his board and clothes at my Grandfather Van Elten's, and
from that time he earned his bread with his hands. Don't imagine that I'm
apologizing," Paul went on rapidly. "The apology belongs on the other
side. In New York, for instance, the Bogardus blood is quite as good as
the Bevier or the Broderick or the Van Elten; but up the Hudson, owing to
those chances or mischances that selected our farming aristocracy for us,
my father's people had slipped out of their holdings and sunk to the poor
artisan class which the old Dutch landowners held in contempt."

"We are not landowners," said Moya. "What does it matter? What does any of
it matter?"

"It matters to be honest and not sail under false colors. I thought you
would not speak of the Poor Man as you do if you knew that I am his son."

"Money has nothing to do with position in the army. I am a poor man's
daughter."

"Ah, child! Your father gives orders--mine took them, all his life."