"Then, mother, to Mr. Carteret we are just peasants, nothing more than common peasants. Your father was a shepherd, and father's was a peasant farmer."
Mrs. MacAllister coloured at the thrust, but tried to evade it.
"Jessie," she said, "what is the use of always humiliating your father and mother by continually reminding them that they were born poor? We have risen above that now and associate with the best in the land. People should be judged by what they are, and not by what they were born to."
"That is exactly what I think, mother. By that standard Dr. Sinclair, who was born on a Canadian farm, is a gentleman. And Mr. Carteret, who was born in an English castle, is not a gentleman."
"For shame, Jessie, to talk like that! You have no right to say that of Mr. Carteret. You humiliated him at our own table to-day, and he bore it like a gentleman."
"Like a coward, you mean!"
"And by getting indignant on behalf of Dr. Sinclair," continued the mother, without paying any heed to the daughter's interjection, "you practically said to everybody that you were in love with him."
"I said no such thing."
"Both Mr. De Vaux and Mr. Carteret understood it that way."
"I don't care a fig what they understood."