“I suppose those four chaps are all famously cured, by this time, then?” said I, pretending again to whistle.
“I cannot answer for that—it is so easy to love Lucy, and to love her warmly. I only know they visit her no longer, and, when they meet her in society, behave just as I think a rejected admirer would behave, when he has not lost his respect for his late flame. Mrs. Bradfort's fortune and position may have had their influence on two; but the others I think were quite sincere.”
“Mrs. Bradfort is quite in a high set, Grace—altogether above what we have been accustomed to?”
My sister coloured a little, and I could see she was not at her ease. Still, Grace had too much self-respect, and too much character, ever to feel an oppressive inferiority, where it did not exist in essentials; and she had never been made to suffer, as the more frivolous and vain often suffer, by communications with a class superior to their own; especially when that class, as always happens, contains those who, having nothing else to be proud of, take care to make others feel their inferiority.
“This is true, Miles,” she answered; “or I might better say, both are true. Certainly I never have seen as many well-bred persons as I meet in her circle—indeed, we have little around us at Clawbonny to teach us any distinctions in such tastes. Mr. Hardinge, simple as he is, is so truly a gentleman, that he has not left us altogether in the dark as to what was expected of us; and I fancy the higher people truly are in the world, the less they lay stress on anything but what is substantial, in these matters.”
“And Lucy's admirers—and Lucy herself—”
“How, Lucy herself?”
“Was she well received—courted—admired? Met as an equal, and treated as an equal? And you, too?”
“Had you lived more in the world, Miles, you would not have asked the question. But Lucy has been always received as Mrs. Bradfort's daughter would have been received; and as for myself, I have never supposed it was not known exactly who I am.”
“Captain Miles Wallingford's daughter, and Captain Miles Wallingford's sister,” said I, with a little bitterness on each emphasis.