"
"Your future prospects are completely changed. You bear it very well."
"It is easy to bear what I am truly thankful for. Abbotsmead is nothing
to me, but those boys ought to be brought up in familiarity with the
place and the people. I am a stranger, and I don't think I am very apt
at making humble friends. To enjoy the life one ought to begin one's
apprenticeship early. I wonder why anybody strains after rank and
riches? I find them no gain at all. I still think Mr. Carnegie the best
gentleman I know, and his wife as true a gentlewoman as any. You are
smiling at my partiality. Shall you be shocked if I add that I have met
in Woldshire grand people who, if they were not known by their titles,
would be reckoned amongst the very vulgar, and gentry of old extraction
who bear no brand of it but that disagreeable manner which is qualified
as high-bred insolence?"
Mrs. Stokes held all the conventionalities in sincere respect. She did
not understand Miss Fairfax, and asked who, then, of their acquaintance
was her pattern of a perfect lady. Bessie instanced Miss Burleigh. "Her
sweet graciousness is never at fault, because it is the flower of her
beautiful disposition," said she.
"I should never have thought of her," said Mrs. Stokes reflectively.
"She is very good. But to go back to those boys: do nothing without
first speaking to Mr. Fairfax."
Bessie demurred, and still believed her own bolder device the best, but
she allowed herself to be overruled, and watched for an opportunity of
speaking.
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