They drew nearer.
"You might have said a big, good-looking fellow!" rejoined Mercy.
"He really is handsome!—Now mind, Mercy, I was the first to discover it!" said Christina.
"Indeed you were not!—At least I was the first to SAY it!" returned
Mercy. "But you will take him all to yourself anyhow, and I am sure
I don't care!"
Yet the girls were not vulgar—they were only common. They did and said vulgar things because they had not the sensitive vitality to shrink from them. They had not been well taught—that is roused to LIVE: in the family was not a breath of aspiration. There was plenty of ambition, that is, aspiration turned hell-ward. They thought themselves as far from vulgar as any lady in any land, being in this vulgar—that they despised the people they called vulgar, yet thought much of themselves for not being vulgar. There was little in them the world would call vulgar; but the world and its ways are vulgar; its breeding will not pass with the ushers of the high countries. The worst in that of these girls was a FAST, disagreeable way of talking, which they owed to a certain governess they had had for a while.
They hastened to the road. The gig came up. Valentine threw the reins to his companion, jumped out, embraced his sisters, and seemed glad to see them. Had he met them after a like interval at home, he would have given them a cooler greeting; but he had travelled so many miles that they seemed not to have met for quite a long time.
"My friend, Mr. Sercombe," he said, jerking his head toward the gig.
Mr. Sercombe raised his POT-LID—the last fashion in head-gear—and acquaintance was made.
"We'll drive on, Sercombe," said Valentine, jumping up. "You see, Chris, we're half dead with hunger! Do you think we shall find anything to eat?"
"Judging by what we left at breakfast," replied Christina, "I should say you will find enough for—one of you; but you had better go and see."