"Yes. I have no doubt I can manage it then."
"Oh, thank you!" said Clementina. "It will be a great delight."
"And now," suggested Malcolm, "would you like to go through the village and see some of the cottages, and how the fishers live?"
"If they would not think me inquisitive or intrusive," answered Clementina.
"There is no danger of that," rejoined Malcolm. "If it were my Lady Bellair, to patronize and deal praise and blame, as if what she calls poverty were fault and childishness, and she their spiritual as well as social superior, they might very likely be what she would call rude. She was here once before, and we have some notion of her about the Seaton. I venture to say there is not a woman in it who is not her moral superior, and many of them are her superiors in intellect and true knowledge, if they are not so familiar with London scandal. Mr. Graham says that in the kingdom of heaven every superior is a ruler, for there to rule is to raise, and a man's rank is his power to uplift."
"I would I were in the kingdom of heaven if it be such as you and Mr. Graham take it for!" said Clementina.
"You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be such as it is."
"Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, Malcolm?"
"So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might well imagine it the other way with some."
"Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?"