“She says it doesn’t matter what your father is,” Essie replied in a low voice, blushing furiously.
“Doesn’t matter?” echoed one of the elder girls. “Of course it matters.”
“Why?” Bridget broke out, wheeling round and facing her.
“Why? Oh, well—because— Well, it decides whether you are a lady.”
“How can your father decide that?” asked Bridget, hotly. “He is not you. You are yourself. You decide that. What do you mean by a lady?”
“Some one whose father is a gentleman,” replied Lena, obstinately. “And you can always tell who is the daughter of a gentleman. You’re a lady, Bid, of course. If your father had been a butcher or baker or candlestick-maker, you’d have been quite different. Your face would have been different; you’d have ugly broad hands, instead of nice thin little ones, like yours.” She took one of them with a caress, and tried to draw the girl down beside her on the sofa, but Bridget drew back. “You would dress horribly,—in bad taste, like those Higginses in church, the grocer people, you know. But your frocks are sweet,” she went on, stroking Bridget’s pink cotton skirt admiringly.
“Oh! and then you’d have a horrid uneducated voice. And altogether,—any one can tell a lady. It’s nonsense to say it doesn’t matter who your father is. Why, nobody knows a person whose father is not a gentleman.”
“Of course not!” some of the girls echoed. Others were discreetly silent. One or two remembered reassuringly that mamma always spoke of “your father’s office,” and added, “Of course not!” a little late, but very emphatically.
“Well, then, listen!” cried Bridget, her voice ringing imperatively. “I don’t care who hears! Listen! and see how stupid you all are! I suppose you don’t call a man who keeps a public house a gentleman. Well, I’m the daughter of a man who keeps a public house.”
There was dead silence. A sort of undefinable flutter of surprise and consternation was in the air. Unconsciously the girls fell back a pace or two. Bridget noticed it, and threw up her head defiantly.