“Of course,” agreed Doris, with a slight smile. “The accident of wealth will enable anyone to build a much more palatial house than this. But only the accident of birth, it seems, enables one to occupy a splendid old Southern homestead.”
Becky regarded the speaker with wonder.
“You’re from the No’th?” she inquired.
“Yes. Our family is old, too; perhaps as aristocratic as that of your Grandfather Eliot. We are from Boston.”
“L-a-w—zee! I believe you are,” declared Becky. “I knew a Boston girl once, who was even more proper an’ ridic’lous in her ways than you are; but she died of a cold in the head, poor thing.”
“A cold?”
“Yes. Mortification set in, ’cause she couldn’t pronounce all the big words proper, on account o’ the cold.” Noticing a resentful look creep over Doris’ face, she hastened to add: “But that don’t count, you know. What really s’prises me is that you think Gran’pa Eliot’s shack is finer than our beautiful old home. I guess that as soon as Noah’s flood faded away Gran’pa Eliot’s house was built, it’s so blamed old.”
“Dear me!” said Doris, in seeming distress, “I wish you wouldn’t speak disrespectfully of Bible history.”
“What’s Bible history?” asked the astonished Becky.