'How have you the boldness,' said I, smiling, 'to talk to me of besetting sin?'
'As I would talk to a soldier of his scars,' said Mr Maitland. 'You think it an honourable blemish.'
'This is too bad!' cried I, 'not only to call me vain, but to tell me that I pique myself on my vanity!'
'Ay,' returned Mr Maitland, dryly, 'on your vanity, or your pride, or your——, call it what you will.'
'Well, pride let it be,' said I. 'Surely there is a becoming pride, which every woman ought to have.'
'A becoming pride!' repeated Mr Maitland; 'the phrase sounds well; now tell me what it means.'
'It means—it means—that is, I believe it means—that sort of dignity which keeps your saucy sex from presuming too far.'
'What connection is there, think you, between cautious decency,—that peculiar endearing instinct of a woman,—and inordinate self-estimation?'
'Oh! I would not have my pride inordinate. I would merely have a comfortable respect for myself and my endowments, to keep up my spirit, that I might not be a poor domestic animal to run about tame with the chickens, and cower with them into a corner as oft as lordly man presented his majestic port before me!—No! I hope I shall never lose my spirit. What should I be without it?'
'Far be it from me to reduce you so deplorably!' said Mr Maitland; beginning with a smile, though, before he ceased to speak, the seriousness of strong interest stole over his countenance. 'But what if Miss Percy, intrusted with every gift of nature and of fortune, should remember that still they were only trusts, and should fear to abuse them? What if, like a wise steward, instead of valuing herself upon the extent of her charge, she should study how to render the best account of it? What would you then be? All that your warmest friends could wish you. You would cease to covet—perhaps to receive—the adulation of fools; and gain, in exchange, the respect, the strong affection, of those who can look beyond a set of features.'