I well remember being intensely chagrined by an exhibition of under-breeding in this way while making a morning visit, with a young countryman of ours, upon a beautiful English girl, a distant relative of his.
After discussing London fogs, and other kindred topics, Jonathan suddenly burst forth, as if suddenly inspired with a bright thought.
"How's the old lady?"
The largest pair of blue eyes, opening to their full extent, turned wonderingly upon the querist.
"Your mother,—is she well this morning?"
"Mamma is pretty well, thank you; but it is not possible that you regard her as old! Mamma is in the very prime of life, only just turned of five and forty! Dear mother! she is looking very pale and sad in her widow's cap, but we have never thought of her as old," and a shadow, like the sudden darkening of a fair landscape, dimmed those deep blue eyes and that fine forehead.
But enough upon this collateral point.
I trust you will need no argument to convince you of the vulgarity and immorality of permitting yourselves the practice of repeating private conversation. Nothing will more surely tend to deprive you of the respect and friendship of well-bred people, since nothing is more thoroughly understood in good society, than a tacit recognition of that essential security to social confidence and good-feeling which utterly interdicts the repetition of private conversation.
Let me only add to these rambling observations the assurance that a ready compliance with the wishes of others, in exercising any personal accomplishment, is a mark of genuine good-breeding.