Has old Phipps confessed
how you have astonished him and falsified his predictions?"
"I am not aware that I have done anything to astonish anybody. I fancied
that I had pleased Mr. Phipps rather than otherwise," said Bessie with a
quiet smile.
"And so you have. He is gratified that a young lady of quality should
have the pluck to make a marriage of affection in a rank so far below
her own, considering nothing but the personal worth of the man she
marries."
"I have never been able to discover the hard and fast conventional lines
that are supposed to separate ranks. There is an affectation in these
matters which practically deludes nobody. A liberal education and the
refinements of wealth are too extensively diffused for those whose pride
it is that they have done nothing but vegetate on one spot of land for
generations to hold themselves aloof as a superior caste. The
pretensions of some of them are evident, but only evident to be
ridiculous--like the pretensions of those who, newly enriched by trade,
decline all but what they describe as carriage-company."
"The poor gentry are eager enough to marry money, but that does not
prevent them sneering at the way the money is made," Miss Buff said.
"Even Lady Latimer herself, speaking of the family who have taken
Admiral Parkins's house for three months, said it was a pity they should
come to a place like Beechhurst, for the gentlefolk would not call upon
them, and they would feel themselves above associating with the
tradespeople.
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