"We'll leave the 'other things' for the present. Don't you see, little one, I talk after my kind, just as you talk after your kind. It's only on the surface with both of us. Why, I daresay some of your good Hollingford ladies talk of the poor people in a manner which they would consider as impertinent in their turn, if they could hear it. But I ought to be more considerate when I remember how often my blood has boiled at the modes of speech and behaviour of one of my aunts, mamma's sister, Lady— No! I won't name names. Any one who earns his livelihood by any exercise of head or hands, from professional people and rich merchants down to labourers, she calls 'persons.' She would never in her most slip-slop talk accord them even the conventional title of 'gentlemen;' and the way in which she takes possession of human beings, 'my woman,' 'my people,'—but, after all, it is only a way of speaking. I ought not to have used it to you; but somehow I separate you from all these Hollingford people."
"But why?" persevered Molly. "I'm one of them."
"Yes, you are. But—now don't reprove me again for impertinence—most of them are so unnatural in their exaggerated respect and admiration when they come up to the Towers, and put on so much pretence by way of fine manners, that they only make themselves objects of ridicule. You at least are simple and truthful, and that's why I separate you in my own mind from them, and have talked unconsciously to you as I would—well! now here's another piece of impertinence—as I would to my equal—in rank, I mean; for I don't set myself up in solid things as any better than my neighbours. Here's tea, however, come in time to stop me from growing too humble."
It was a very pleasant little tea in the fading September twilight.
Just as it was ended, in came Mr. Preston again:—
"Lady Harriet, will you allow me the pleasure of showing you some alterations I have made in the flower-garden—in which I have tried to consult your taste—before it grows dark?"
Unwelcome Attentions.
"Thank you, Mr. Preston. I will ride over with papa some day, and we will see if we approve of them."