"I am sure Miss Morton is more of a lady, because she is so gentle and kind," said Amy; "and she always thinks of other people before herself, and never gets out of temper, and never boasts of anything."
"Well! but those are virtues; you talk so foolishly, Amy. Susan Reynolds or Morris may be all that, but they would not be at all the more ladies."
"No," said Dora, coming to Amy's assistance; "they would not be ladies, because they would still have clumsy, awkward ways of doing things, and of speaking."
"Of course, that is just what I was saying!" exclaimed Margaret, triumphantly.
"No; but Margaret," persisted Amy, "indeed that is not what you were saying; for I am sure Miss Cunningham is much more awkward than Miss Morton, and yet you say that all the world would consider her superior."
"So they would," replied Margaret.
Amy was silent for a few minutes; at length she said, "Mamma told me one day that we ought not to think as the world thinks, because the world means generally a great many vain, silly persons."
"Then you would set up to be wiser and better than everybody else, I suppose," said Margaret.
Dora again interposed, for she thought she saw what her cousin meant. "Amy is right, I am sure; it would be only silly people who would think so much more of Lucy Cunningham's birth than of other things. Not all the rank in the world will make persons ladies and gentlemen without manners."
"But I mean something besides manners," said Amy; "because, what I like in Miss Morton is not quite manner; it is her being good that helps to make her a lady, I think."