"We have nothing to do with that," replied Nora, to whom the remark happened to be made. "I dare say that there are a great many good people in the world of whom we have never heard; I know all that I need to about Ruth Roberts, that she has good manners and a pleasant disposition, and an agreeable family. I know, for I have visited them——" Then, throwing a little emphasis into her voice, she concluded, "Really, Frances, you are growing very tiresome, and if I were you I should try to be less narrow-minded. Any one to hear you talk, would think that no one in the world is worth considering who does not happen to live in certain streets in your neighborhood."
"Perhaps that is what I do think," answered Frances. "We can't make intimate friends of every one in the world, and we might as well have nothing to do with those who are not in our own set. I hate these people who are always trying to push in."
"If you mean Ruth, you are entirely wrong. She is the last girl in the world likely to try to push in. She thinks quite as well of herself as you do of yourself, and I dare say that she had some ancestors, even if they were not governors of Massachusetts."
Now despite the fact that this speech, when quoted, sounds rather acrimonious, Frances took no offence at it. She could not afford to quarrel with so popular a girl as Nora, and besides she knew that the Gostars had a good claim to the same kind of pride of descent that she had herself. So, although both girls turned away from each other with an annoyed expression on their faces, their next meeting was perfectly amicable.
When Nora repeated this conversation to her mother, Mrs. Gostar smiled.
"If I were you, Nora, I would not take anything that Frances says too seriously. She has been brought up rather unfortunately."
"But it is so tiresome to have her going around most of the time with her head in the air, saying, 'Oh, I cannot do this, or I cannot do that, because I am a Pounder.'"
Mrs. Gostar laughed at this speech, and the gesture and tossing back of the head with which Nora emphasized it.
"Frances hardly says that, does she?" she enquired.
"Yes, she does, she really does—sometimes," replied Nora, "and I am sure that she feels like saying it all the time. Of course we all know that there have been two governors, and one or two generals, and other people like that in her family somewhere in the dim past. I am sure that we have heard enough about it. But there is nothing very great about Frances' own family so far as I have ever heard, and some one told me that her father could not even get his degree at college. If they hadn't so much money——"