"In what capacity, Mabel?" Katherine smiled. "We none of us remember your father, but Liv and Dev told me once when I asked them that he had been an under-clerk at Canford and Crin's—the St. Alden solicitors—and then passed the examinations. From what I've learned about his sort of people by living among them for a month, I don't expect Lord Hexam was very intimate with Mr. Cawber—but we are all acquainted in the same way, aren't we, Tild? You remember hearing of this family from mother's father, who was their butcher for the river house at Maidenhead."
Mabel glared; this was sheer impertinence; her queenship of this circle was not being treated with proper respect—How vulgar of Katherine, she thought!
Mabel's refinement was almost of the degree of the Boston lady who insisted upon the piano's "limbs" being put into pantaloons with frills. She would hardly have spoken of a butcher! She felt particularly annoyed now also, because the clerk episode was a fact which she thought was quite unknown—the solicitorship at Bindon's Green having gloriously advanced the family fortunes.
Poor Matilda was quite upset and reproached Katherine when she succeeded in getting her into a corner alone.
"Whatever did you speak to Mabel like that for, Kitten?—And I am sure we need not tell everyone about Grandpa—since he did not live here."
"Her nonsense makes me feel quite sick, Tild—she is always pretending some ridiculous knowledge and acquaintanceship with the aristocracy. She gets all the names wrong, and gives herself away all the time; it does her good to be found out once in a way."
Matilda could bear this side of the affair, but resented the allusion to the butcher with undiminished fervour.
"Oh! what awful snobs you all are!" Katherine exclaimed, exasperated out of her amused tolerance at last. "I am not the least ashamed of him: I am proud, on the contrary. He was honest and made money. Why are you and Mabel and all your friends such absurd shams, Tild!—There is nothing disgraceful in being lower middle class; it is honourable and worthy. Why on earth pretend to belong to another, when anyone who knows can see it is untrue—or if you hate your real station, then do as I am doing, educate yourself out of it."
"Educate myself out of it!" Matilda was incensed. "Why, I'm sure we are all as fairly educated as any ladies need be."