"Unless she had qualities that would command them," said Mr.
Carleton.
"But, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said the lady, "Do you think that can be? do you think a woman can fill, gracefully, a high place in society, if she has had disadvantages in early life to contend with, that were calculated to unfit her for it?"
"But, mamma," said Constance, "Fleda don't show any such thing."
"No, she don't show it," said Mrs. Evelyn, "but I am not talking of Fleda I am talking of the effect of early disadvantages. What do you think, Mr. Carleton?"
"Disadvantages of what kind, Mrs. Evelyn?"
"Why, for instance the strange habits of intercourse, on familiar terms, with rough and uncultivated people such intercourse, for years in all sorts of ways in the field and in the house mingling with them as one of them it seems to me, it must leave its traces on the mind, and on the habits of acting and thinking."
"There is no doubt it does," he answered, with an extremely unconcerned face.
"And then, there's the actual want of cultivation," said Mrs. Evelyn, warming "time taken up with other things, you know usefully and properly, but still taken up so as to make much intellectual acquirement and accomplishments impossible; it can't be otherwise, you know neither opportunity nor instructors; and I don't think anything can supply the want in after life. It isn't the mere things themselves which may be acquired the mind should grow up in the atmosphere of them don't you think so, Mr. Carleton?"
He bowed.
"Music, for instance, and languages, and converse with society, and a great many things, are put completely beyond reach Edith, my dear, you are not to touch the coffee nor Constance either no, I will not let you And there could not be even much reading, for want of books, if for nothing else. Perhaps I am wrong, but I confess I don't see how it is possible in such a case"