"Never mind," said Fleda,--"if a meaning isn't plain it isn't worth looking after. But it will not do to measure pride by its supposed materials. It does not depend on them but on the individual. You everywhere see people assert that most of which they feel least sure, and then it is easy for them to conclude that where there is so much more of the reality there must be proportionably more of the assertion. I wish some of our gentlemen, and ladies, who talk of pride where they see and can see nothing but the habit of wealth--I wish they could see the universal politeness with which Mr. Carleton returns the salutes of his inferiors. Not more respectfully they lift their hats to him than he lifts his to them--unless when he speaks."
"You have seen it?"
"Often."
"Where?"
"In England--at his own place--among his own servants and dependents. I remember very well--it struck even my childish eyes."
"Well, after all, that is nothing still but a refined kind of haughtiness."
"It is a kind that I wish some of our Americans would copy," said Fleda.
"But dear Fleda," said Mrs. Rossitur, "all Americans are not like that lady you were talking of--it would be very unfair to make her a sample. I don't think I ever heard any one speak so in my life--you never heard me speak so."
"Dear aunt Lucy!--no,--I was only giving instance for instance. I have no idea that Mr. Carleton is a type of Englishmen in general--I wish he were. But I think it is the very people that cry out against superiority, who are the most happy to assert their own where they can; the same jealous feeling that repines on the one hand, revenges itself on the other."
"Superiority of what kind?" said Charlton stiffly.