"But isn't everybody that is grown up, a 'lady'?—every woman, I mean?"
"No more than every grown up man is a gentleman."
Rotha stood looking at him, and the young man on his part regarded her with more attention than usual. He was suddenly touched with compassion for the girl. She stood, half doubtful, half proud, dimly conscious of her enormous ignorance, and with an inward monition of a whole world of knowledge to be acquired, yet beyond her reach; at the same time her look shewed capacity enough both to understand and to feel. Rotha was now nearly fourteen, with mental powers just opening and personal gifts just beginning to dawn. The child's complexion told of poor feeding and want of air and exercise; it was sallow, and her features were sharp; but her hair was beautiful in its lustrous, dark abundance; the eyes shewed the fire of native passion and intelligence; the mouth was finely cut and expressed half a dozen things in as many minutes. "Poor child!" thought the visiter; "what is to become of her, with all this latent power and possibility?"
"A gentleman, Rotha," he said aloud, "may be defined as a person who in all manner of little things keeps the golden rule—does to everybody as he would be done by; and knows how."
"In little things? Not in great things?"
"One may do it in great things, and not be a gentleman in manner; though certainly in heart."
"Then it is manner?"
"Very much."
"And a lady the same way?"
"Of course."