“I find them perfect. Their very audacity renders them faultless. And the charm is that she does not even suspect herself audacious.”
“That is her charm, I confess,” responded Arthur; “but it is a dangerous one, and may one day cause her to be sadly misunderstood.”
“A London drawing-room is your high court of parliament, Arthur!” said his father.
“Miss Wylder, with all her sweetness,” remarked Miss Malliver, “has not an idea of social distinction. She cannot understand why she should not talk to any farmer's man or dairymaid she happens to meet! It is not her talking to them I mind so much as the familiar way she does it. If they take liberties, it will be her own fault. Any groom might be pardoned for fancying she thought him as good as herself!”
“But she does,” answered Theodora. “Yesterday, I found her talking to the bookbinder as familiarly as if he had been Arthur!”
This was hardly correct, for Barbara talked to the bookbinder with a deference she never showed Lestrange.
“She lacks self-respect!” said lady Ann. “But we must deal with her gently, and try to do her good. I think myself there is not much amiss with her beyond love of her own way. Her dislike of restraint certainly does not befit a communicant!”
Lady Ann was an unfaltering church-goer, rigidly decorous in rendering what she imagined God, and knew the clergyman expected, and as rank a mammon-worshipper as any in the land.
“But I so far agree with sir Wilton,” she went on, “as to grant that her manners have in them the germ of possible distinction; and I think they will come to be all, or nearly all, that could be desired. We ought at least to give her the advantage of any doubt, and do what we can to lead her in the right direction.”
“It's a fine thing to go to church and have your wits sharpened!” said the baronet, with an ungenial laugh.