CHAPTER XXIX
THE SHADOW OF A CHANGE

Everything in this world is comparative, there is nothing absolute.

All creation is in scale from the animated germ to the man, through all the ranges of invertebrate and vertebrate life. And man is not a culminating superlative, for mankind is in itself a wondrous ladder made up of degrees. Taken physically, intellectually, socially, he is situated on a stage with stages above and others below him. Indeed every man in his several aspects or component parts is but relative. He may be handsomer than another, but not so clever, or handsomer and more clever, but stand on an inferior social rung.

Now when Mrs. Marley informed Mrs. Jose that nothing would satisfy her short of the introduction of Winefred into high society, Mrs. Jose ran her eye up the scale of her kindred and acquaintances, and said with confidence: 'My dear Jane, I can put her into the very 'ighest, short of a title. It is that of Tomkin-Jones of Bath'; and as Jacob's ladder lost itself in heaven so did that social scale up which Mrs. Jose looked land itself in the transcendent blaze of the Tomkin-Jones parlour. 'Yes,' said Mrs. Jose, 'it will not do to have the girl here longer; it is curdling her soul, like putting over much cider into milk posset. You are right. We must get her out of this place if she is to be reared as a lady. If you keep poultry on the same ground they get the gapes. We must shift the hutches. We will send Winefred to Bath.'

In Mrs. Jose's pleasant face little dimples formed.

'Yes, Jane,' said she, 'but I'm thinking, Mrs. Tomkin-Jones is not in the best circumstances, though she be so high. You cannot expect her to do it for nothing. It is her misfortune to be unable to teach manners for the pleasure of the thing. You see it is just the same as giving lessons on the piano—one has to be taught the fingering—and that fingering in social life they call tact. Only them as knows it can teach it.'

'I will pay—and that gladly. What I desire is, that my Winefred should become a real lady.'

'Learn the fingering—that is all she requires,' said Mrs. Jose. 'In 'igh society they hold themselves above shoppies. All things don't agree with every one. There is my cat is ill after eating herrings. You must not let out that you have been a hawker. We know that by nature all are equal. Scripture says so, just as hams be when they come from the pig. But, my! what a difference there be in the curing! It is that which gives style and flavour, and makes a prime Wiltshire or a Yorkshire stand out above your raw green hams. It is into the pickle you must put Winefred, and I'll see to it, and the pickle must get right down into her bone. I don't approve of glazing and flummery, and when you cut in—nothing but saltpetre. If she is to dress and act as a lady, she must think and feel as a lady. When I see an old woman dressed very young, I say it is mutton with mint sauce, served as lamb; we will have Winefred real, and she has a right to be that, for her father was a gentleman. Mrs. Tomkin-Jones is my cousin, but I don't presume on that. She was a Stripe, and that was the name of my mother's family.'

'And do you think you can persuade them to take my Winefred—if I pay?'

'I will try. They used to keep their carriage. I don't say that they do so now. But it is not forgotten that they did. Keeping your carriage and pair—it sticks to one just as the smell of lavender does to your linen if you have kept them together.'