Miss Cunningham did not immediately perceive what was intended, but Hester did, and in her endeavour to be polite in contrast to her sister, contrived to make the meaning perfectly clear. "I do not see why you should think that, Julia," she said, "of course a person of Miss Cunningham's rank would never do anything of the kind, but it is wrong to say she could not do it."
"No one said so, of course," exclaimed Miss Cunningham.
"Oh dear! no," replied Julia; "all that I said was, that conjurers were clever."
Amy looked at Miss Cunningham, and saw that for once in her life she understood; and anxious if possible to preserve peace, she returned again to the subject of vulgarity; saying she wished she could comprehend it better.
"You will comprehend it very well when you are older and have seen more of the world," replied Emily; "but I think now if you observe what things strike you as vulgar in persons, you will find they are always those which arise from a wish to be thought richer or cleverer, or higher in rank than they really are, or else from their having the manners and habits of a class who are inferior to themselves. Bad grammar is very natural in a labouring man, and very vulgar in a nobleman; a splendid dress is very proper for a queen, and very vulgar for the wife of a tradesman. All persons who go out of their station, or pretend to be what they are not, must be vulgar, whether they are princes or peasants. You often hear of persons of no education, who have made great fortunes from a very low beginning, trying to vie with those born to rank and riches, and then they are laughed at as vulgar. If they had kept to their own station, they might have had precisely the same manners; but they would have escaped ridicule, because then there would have been no pretence about them."
"But it is in little things that I am puzzled," said Amy. "Are persons vulgar who make pies and puddings, and mend their own clothes?"
"To be sure they are, Amy," said Frank, who had great notions of having every one belonging to him very refined and superior; "I hope you never intend to do such things, or you had better set up a dame-school at once."
"But do you think so, too?" asked Amy, looking earnestly at Miss Morton.
"No! indeed, I do not," replied Emily; "I think the more we know of common, useful things, the better, as long as we are not ashamed of them. It is the doing them in private, and pretending to be ignorant of them in public, which constitutes the vulgarity."
"I am always afraid of not knowing what I ought to do when I am with people," said Amy, "and I should be so sorry to do vulgar things."