“Well, you are comforting. You’d spoil him more than I do,” said Amanda.
“Possibly, but it would be in a different way. I wouldn’t tell him every three minutes that his father was a duke.”
“A duke I never mentioned!” the little dressmaker cried with eagerness. “I never specified any rank nor said a word about any one in particular. I never so much as insinuated the name of his lordship. But I may have said that if the truth was to be found out he might be proved to be connected—in the way of cousinship, or something of the kind—with the highest in the land. I should have thought myself wanting if I hadn’t given him a glimpse of that. But there’s one thing I’ve always added—that the truth never is found out.”
“You’re still more comforting than I!” Mr. Vetch exclaimed. He continued to watch her with his charitable, round-faced smile, and then he said: “You won’t do what I say; so what’s the use of my telling you?”
“I assure you I will, if you say you believe it’s the only right.”
“Do I often say anything so asinine? Right—right? what have you to do with that? If you want the only right you’re very particular.”
“Please then what am I to go by?” the dressmaker asked bewildered.
“You’re to go by this, by what will take the youngster down.”
“Take him down, my poor little pet?”
“Your poor little pet thinks himself the flower of creation. I don’t say there’s any harm in that: a fine blooming, odoriferous conceit is a natural appendage of youth and intelligence. I don’t say there’s any great harm in it, but if you want a guide as to how you’re to treat the boy, that’s as good a guide as any other.”