Kitabı oku: «Brownlows», sayfa 3
CHAPTER IV.
A LITTLE DINNER
There was a very pleasant party that evening at Brownlows—the sort of thing of which people say, that it is not a party at all, you know, only ourselves and the Hardcastles, or whoever else it may happen to be. There was the clergyman of the parish, of course—who is always, if he happens to be at all agreeable, the very man for such little friendly dinners; and there was his daughter; for he was a widower, like Mr. Brownlow—and his Fanny was half as much to him, to say the least, as Sara was to her admiring father. And there was just one guest besides—young Keppel, to wit, the son of old Keppel of Ridley, and brother of the present Mr. Keppel—a young fellow who was not just precisely what is called eligible, so far as the young ladies were concerned, but who did very well for all secondary purposes, and was a barrister with hopes of briefs, and a flying connection with literature, which helped him to keep his affairs in order, and was rather of service to him than otherwise in society, as it sometimes is to a perfectly well-connected young man. Thus there were two girls and two young men, and two seniors to keep each other company; and there was a great deal of talk and very pleasant intercourse, enough to justify the rector in his enthusiastic utterance of his favorite sentiment, that this was true society, and that he did not know what people meant by giving dinners at which there were more than six. Mr. Hardcastle occasionally, it is true, expressed under other circumstances opinions which might be supposed a little at variance with this one; but then a man can not always be in the same mind, and no doubt he was quite sincere in what he said. He was a sort of man that exists, but is not produced now-a-days. He was neither High Church nor Low Church, so to speak. If you had offered to confess your sins to him he would have regarded you with as much terror and alarm as if you had presented a pistol at his head; and if you had attempted to confess your virtues under the form of spiritual experience, he would have turned from you with disgust. Neither was he in the least freethinking, but a most correct orthodox clergyman, a kind of man, as I have said, not much produced in these times. Besides this indefinite clerical character he had a character of his own, which was not at all indefinite. He was a little red-faced, and sometimes almost jovial in his gayety, and at the same time he was in possession of a large stock of personal griefs and losses, which had cost him many true tears and heartaches, poor man, but which were very useful to him in the way of his profession. And he had an easy way of turning from the one phase of life to the other, which had a curious effect sometimes upon impartial spectators. But all the same it was perfectly true and genuine. He made himself very agreeable that night at Brownlows, and was full of jest and frolic; but if he had been called to see somebody in trouble as he went home, he would have gone in and drawn forth from his own private stores of past pain, and manifested plainly to the present sufferer that he himself had suffered more bitterly still. He had “come through” all the pangs that a man can suffer in this world. He had lost his wife and his children, till nothing was left to him but this one little Fanny—and he loved to open his closed-up chambers to your eyes, and to meet your pitiful looks and faltering attempt at consolation; and yet at the same time you would find him very jolly in the evening at Mr. Brownlow’s, which hurt the feelings of some sensitive people. His daughter, little Fanny, was pretty and nice, and nothing particular, which suited her position and prospects perfectly well. These were the two principal guests, young Keppel being only a man, as ladies who are in the habit of giving dinners are wont to describe such floating members of the community. And they all talked and made themselves pleasant, and it was as pretty and as lively a little party as you could well have seen. Quantities of flowers and lights, two very pretty girls, and two good-looking young men, were enough to guarantee its being a very pretty scene; and nobody was afraid of any body, and every body could talk, and did so, which answered for the latter part of the description. Such little parties were very frequent at Brownlows.
After dinner the two girls had a little talk by themselves. They came floating into the great drawing-room with those heaps of white drapery about them which make up for any thing that may be intrinsically unamiable1 in crinoline. Before they went up stairs, making it ready for them, a noble fire, all red, clear, and glowing, was in the room, and made it glorious; and the pretty things which glittered and reddened and softened in the bright warm atmosphere were countless.
There was a bouquet of violets on the table, which was Mr. Pitt the gardener’s daily quit-rent to Sara for all the honors and emoluments of his situation, so that every kind of ethereal sense was satisfied. Fanny Hardcastle dropped into a very low chair at one side of the fire, where she sat like a swan with her head and throat rising out of the white billowy waves which covered yards of space round about her. Sara, who was at home, drew a stool in front of the fire, and sat down there, heaping up in her turn snow-wreaths upon the rosy hearth. A sudden spark might have swallowed them both in fiery destruction. But the spark happily did not come; and they had their talk in great comfort and content. They touched upon a great many topics, skimming over them, and paying very little heed to logical sequences. And at last they stumbled into metaphysics, and had a curious little dive into the subject of love and love-making, as was not unnatural. It is to be regretted, however, that neither of these young women had very exalted ideas on this point. They were both girls of their period, who recognized the necessity of marriage, and that it was something likely to befall both of them, but had no exaggerated notions of its importance; and, indeed, so far from being utterly absorbed in the anticipation of it, were both far from clear whether they believed in such a thing as love.
“I don’t think one ever could be so silly as they say in books,” said Fanny Hardcastle, “unless one was a great fool—feeling as if every thing was changed, you know, as soon as he was out of the room, and feeling one’s heart beat when he was coming, and all that stuff; I don’t believe it Sara; do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Sara, making a screen of her pretty laced handkerchief to protect her face from the firelight; “perhaps it is because one has never seen the right sort of man. The only man I have ever seen whom one could really love is papa.”
“Papa!” echoed Fanny, faintly, and with surprise. Perhaps, after all, she had a lingering faith in ordinary delusions; at all events, there was nothing heroic connected in her mind with papas in general; and she could but sit still and gaze and wonder what next the spoiled child would say.
“I wonder if mamma was very fond of him,” said Sara, meditatively. “She ought to have been, but I dare say she never knew him half as well as I do. That is the dreadful thing. You have to marry them before you know.”
“Oh, Sara, don’t you believe in love at first sight?” said Fanny, forgetting her previously expressed sentiments. “I do.”
Sara threw up her drooping head into the air with a little impatient motion. “I don’t think I believe any thing about it,” she said.
“And yet there was once somebody that was fond of you,” said little Fanny breathlessly. “Poor Harry Mansfield, who was so nice—every body knows about that—and, I do think, Mr. Keppel, if you would not be so saucy to him—”
“Mr. Keppel!” exclaimed Sara, with some scorn. “But I will tell you plainly what I mean to do. Mind it is in confidence between us two. You must never tell it to any body. I have made up my mind to marry whoever papa wishes me to marry—I don’t mind who it is. I shall do whatever he says.”
“Oh, Sara!” said her young companion, with open eyes and mouth, “you will never go so far as that.”
“Oh yes, I will,” said Sara, with calm assurance. “He would not ask me to have any body very old or very hideous; and if he lets it alone I shall never leave him at all, but stay still here.”
“That might be all very well for a time,” said the prudent Fanny; “but you would get old, and you couldn’t stay here forever. That is what I am afraid of. Things get so dull when one is old.”
“Do you think so?” said Sara. “I don’t think I should be dull—I have so many things to do.”
“Oh, you are the luckiest girl in the whole world,” said Fanny Hardcastle, with a little sigh. She, for her own part, would not have despised the reversion of Mr. Keppel, and would have been charmed with Jack Brownlow. But such blessings were not for her. She was in no hurry about it; but still, as even now it was dull occasionally at the rectory, she could not but feel that when she was old—say, seven-and-twenty or so—it would be duller still; and if accordingly, in the mean time, somebody “nice” would turn up—Fanny’s thoughts went no farther than this. And as for Sara, she has already laid her own views on the subject before her friends.
It was just then that Jack Brownlow, leaving the dining-room, invited young Keppel to the great hall door to see what sort of a night it was. “It looked awfully like frost,” Jack said; and they both went with serious countenances to look out, for the hounds were to meet next day.
“Smoke! not when we are going back to the ladies,” said Keppel, with a reluctance which went far to prove the inclination which Fanny Hardcastle had read in his eyes.
“Put yourself into this overcoat,” said Jack, “and I’ll take you to my room, and perfume you after. The girls don’t mind.”
“Your sister must mind, I am sure,” said Keppel. “One can’t think of any coarse sort of gratification like this—I suppose it is a gratification—in her presence.”
“Hum,” said Jack; “I have her presence every day, you know, and it does not fill me with awe.”
“It is all very easy for you,” said Keppel, as they went down the steps into the cold and darkness. Poor fellow! he had been a little thrown off his balance by the semi-intimacy and close contact of the little dinner. He had sat by Sara’s side, and he had lost his head. He went along by Jack’s side rather disconsolate, and not even attempting to light his cigar. “You don’t know how well off you are,” he said, in touching tones, “whereas another fellow would give his head—”
“Most fellows I know want their heads for their own affairs,” said the unfeeling Jack. “Don’t be an ass; you may talk nonsense as much as you like, but you know you never could be such an idiot as to marry at your age.”
“Marry!” said Keppel, a little startled, and then he breathed forth a profound sigh. “If I had the ghost of a chance,” he said, and stopped short, as if despair choked farther utterance. As for Jack Brownlow, he was destitute of sensibility, as indeed was suitable to his trade.
“I shouldn’t say you had in this case,” he said, in his imperturbable way; “and all the better for you. You’ve got to make your way in the world like the rest of us, and I don’t think you’re the sort of fellow to hang on to a girl with money. It’s all very well after a bit, when you’ve made your way; but no fellow with the least respect for himself should think of such a thing before, say five-and-thirty; unless, of course, he is a duke, and has a great family to keep up.”
“I hope you’ll keep to your own standard,” said Keppel, with a little bitterness, “unless you think an only son and a duke on equal ground.”
“Don’t sneer,” said Jack; “I’m young Brownlow the attorney; you know that as well as I do. I can’t go visiting all over the country at my uncle’s place and my cousin’s place, like you. Brownlows is a sort of a joke to most people, you know. Not that I haven’t as much respect for my father and my family as if we were all princes; and I mean to stand by my order. If I ever marry it will be twenty years hence, when I can afford it; and you can’t afford it any more than I can. A fellow might love a woman and give up a great deal for her,” Jack added with a little excitement; “but, by Jove! I don’t think he would be justified in giving up his life.”
“It depends on what you call life,” said Keppel. “I suppose you mean society and that sort of thing—a few stupid parties and club gossip, and worse.”
“I don’t mean any thing of the sort,” said Jack, tossing away his cigar; “I mean working out your own career, and making your way. When a fellow goes and marries and settles down, and cuts off all his chances, what use is his youth and his strength to him? It would be hard upon a poor girl to be expected to make up for all that.”
“I did not know you were such a philosopher, Jack,” said his companion, “nor so ambitious; but I suppose you’re right in a cold-blooded sort of way. Anyhow; if I were that duke—”
“You’d make an ass of yourself,” said young Brownlow; and then the two congratulated each other that the skies were clouding over, and the dreaded frost dispersing into drizzle, and went in and took off their smoking coats, and wasted a flask of eau-de-cologne, and went up stairs; where there was an end of all philosophy, at least for that night.
And the seniors sat over their wine, drinking little, notwithstanding Mr. Hardcastle’s ruddy countenance, which was due rather to fresh air, taken in large and sometimes boisterous drafts, than to any stronger beverage. But they liked their talk, and they were, in a friendly way, opposed to each other on a great many questions; the rector, as in duty bound, being steadily conservative, while the lawyer had crotchets in political matters. They were discussing the representatives of the county, and also those of some of the neighboring boroughs, which was probably the reason why Mr. Hardcastle gave a personal turn to the conversation as he suddenly did.
“If you will not stand for the borough yourself, you ought to put forward Jack,” said the rector. “I think he is sounder than you are. The best sign I know of the country is that all the young fellows are tories, Brownlow. Ah! you may shake your head, but I have it on the best authority. Sir Robert would support him, of course; and with your influence at Masterton—”
“Jack must stick to his business,” said Mr. Brownlow; “neither he nor I have time for politics. Besides, we are not the sort of people—county families, you know.”
“Oh, bother county families!” said Mr. Hardcastle. “You know there is not another place in the county kept up like Brownlows. If you will not stand yourself, you ought to push forward your boy.”
“It is out of my way,” said Mr. Brownlow, shaking his head, and then a momentary smile passed over his face. It had occurred to him, by means of a trick of thought he had got into unawares—if Sara could but do it! and then he smiled at himself. Even while he did so, the recollection of his disturbed day returned to him; and though he was a lawyer and a self-contained man, and not given to confidences, still something moved in his heart and compelled him, as it were, to speak.
“Besides,” he went on, “we are only here on sufferance. You know all about my circumstances—every body in Dartfordshire does, I believe; and Phœbe Thomson may turn up any day and make her claim.”
“Nonsense,” said the rector; but there was something in John Brownlow’s look which made him feel that it was not altogether nonsense. “But even if she were to turn up,” he added, after a pause, “I suppose it would not ruin you to pay her her fifty thousand pounds.”
“No, that is true enough,” said Mr. Brownlow. It was a kind of ease to him to give this hint that he was still human and fallible, and might have losses to undergo; but the same instinct which made him speak closed his lips as to any more disastrous consequences than the loss of the original legacy. “Sara will have some tea for us up stairs,” he said, after a pause. And then the two fathers went up to the drawing-room in their turn, and nothing could be more cheerful than the rest of the evening, though there were a good many thoughts and speculations of various kinds going on under this lively flood of talk, as may be perceived.
CHAPTER V.
SARA’S SPECULATIONS
The next morning the frost had set in harder than before, contrary to all prognostications, to the great discomfiture of Jack Brownlow and of the Dartfordshire hounds. The world was white, glassy, and sparkling, when they all looked out upon it from the windows of the breakfast-room—another kind of world altogether from that dim and cloudy sphere upon which Jack and his companion had looked with hopes of thaw and an open country. These hopes being all abandoned, the only thing that remained to be thought of was, whether Dewsbury Mere might be “bearing,” or when the ice would be thick enough for skaters—which were questions in which Sara, too, took a certain interest. It was the parish of Dewsbury in which Brownlows was situated, and of which Mr. Hardcastle was the parish priest; and young Keppel, along with his brother Mr. Keppel of Ridley, and all the visitors he might happen to have, and Sir Charles Hetherton, from the other side, with any body who might be staying in his house—not to speak of the curate and the doctor, and Captain Stanmore, who lived in the great house in Dewsbury village, and a number of other persons less known in the upper circles of the place, would crowd to the Mere as soon as it was known that it might yield some diversion, which was a scant commodity in the neighborhood. Mr. Brownlow scarcely listened to the talk of the young people as he ate his eggs sedately. He was not thinking of the ice for one. He was thinking of something quite different—of what might be waiting him at his office, and of the changes which any moment, as he said to himself, might produce. He was not afraid, for daylight disperses many ghosts that are terrible by night; but still his fright seemed to have opened his eyes to all the advantages of his present position, and the vast difference there was between John Brownlow the attorney’s children, and the two young people from Brownlows. If that change were ever to occur, it would make a mighty alteration. Lady Hetherton would still know Sara, no doubt, but in how different a way! and their presence at Dewsbury then would be of no more importance than that of Fanny Hardcastle or young Stanmore in the village—whereas, now—This was what their father was reflecting, not distinctly, but in a vague sort of way, as he ate his egg. He had once been fond of the ice himself, and was not so old but that he felt the wonted fires burn in his ashes; but the office had an attraction for him which it had never had before, and he drove down by himself in the dog-cart with the vigor and eagerness of a young man, while his son got out his skates and set off to ascertain the prospects of the Mere. In short, at that moment Mr. Brownlow rather preferred to go off to business alone.
As for Sara, she did not allow her head to be turned by the prospect of the new amusement; she went through her duties, as usual, with serene propriety—and then she put all sorts of coverings on her feet and her hands, and her person generally, and set out with a little basket to visit her “poor people.” I can not quite tell why she chose the worst weather to visit her poor people—perhaps it was for their sakes, to find out their wants at the worst; perhaps for her own, to feel a little meritorious. I do not pretend to be able to fathom Sara’s motives; but this is undeniably what she did. When it rained torrents, she put on a large waterproof, which covered her from head to foot, and went off with drops of rain blown upon her fair cheeks under her hood, on the same charitable mission. This time it was in a fur-trimmed jacket, which was the envy of half the parish. Her father spoiled her, it was easy to see, and gave her every thing she could desire; but her poor people liked to see her in her expensive apparel, and admired and wondered what it might cost, and were all the better pleased with the tea and sugar. They were pleased that she should wear her fine things for them as well as for the fine people she went to visit. I do not attempt to state the reason why.
When she went out at the park gates, Mrs. Swayne was the first person who met Sara’s eyes, standing at her door. The lines of the road were so lost in snow that it seemed an expanse of level white from the gate of Brownlows to the door-step, cleared and showing black over the whiteness, upon which Mrs. Swayne stood. She was a stout woman, and the cold did not seem to affect her. She had a black gown on and a little scarlet shawl, as if she meant to make herself unusually apparent; and there she stood defiant as the young lady came out. Sara was courageous, and her spirit was roused by this visible opponent. She gave herself a little shake, and then she went straight over the road and offered battle. “Are you not afraid of freezing up,” she said to Mrs. Swayne, with an abruptness which might have taken away any body’s breath—“or turning into Lot’s wife, standing there at the open door?”
Mrs. Swayne was a woman of strong nerves, and she was not frightened. She gave a little laugh to gain time, and then she retorted briskly, “No, miss, no more nor you in all your wraps; poor folks can stand a deal that rich folks couldn’t bear.”
“It must be much better to be poor than to be rich, then,” said Sara, “but I don’t believe that—your husband, for instance, is not half so strong as—but I beg your pardon—I forgot he was ill,” she cried, with a compunction which covered her face with crimson, “I did not mean to say that; when one speaks without thinking, one says things one doesn’t mean.”
“It’s a pity to speak without thinking,” said Mrs. Swayne; “If I did, I’d say a deal of unpleasant things; but, to be sure, you’re but a bit of a girl. My man is independent, and it don’t matter to nobody whether he is weakly or whether he is strong.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Sara, meekly; “I am very sorry he is not strong.”
“My man,” continued Mrs. Swayne, “is well-to-do and comfortable, and don’t want no pity: there’s a plenty in the village to be sorry for—not them as the ladies visit and get imposed upon. Poor folks understands poor folks—not as I mean to say we’re poor.”
“Then, if you are not poor you can’t understand them any better than I do,” said Sara, with returning courage. “I don’t think they like well-to-do people like you; you are always the most hard upon them. If we were never to get any thing we did not deserve, I wonder what would become of us; and besides, I am sure they don’t impose upon me.”
“They’d impose upon the Apostle Paul,” said Mrs. Swayne; “and as for the rector—not as he is much like one of the apostles; he is one as thinks his troubles worse than other folks. It ain’t no good complaining to him. You may come through every thing as a woman can come through; but the parson’ll find as he’s come through more. That’s just Mr. Hardcastle. If a poor man is left with a young family, it’s the rector as has lost two wives; and as for children and money—though I don’t believe for one as he ever had any money—your parsons ’as come through so much never has—”
“You are a Dissenter, Mrs. Swayne,” said Sara, with calm superiority.
“Bred and born and brought up in the church, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, indignantly, “but druve to the chapel along of Swayne, and the parson being so aggravatin’. I’m one as likes a bit of sympathy, for my part; but it ain’t general in this world,” said the large woman, with a sigh.
Sara looked at her curiously, with her head a little on one side. She was old enough to know that one liked a little sympathy, and to feel too that it was not general in this world; but it seemed mighty strange to her that such an ethereal want should exist in the bosom of Mrs. Swayne. “Sympathy?” she said, with a curious tone of wonder and inquiry. She was candid enough, notwithstanding a certain comic aspect which the conversation began to take to her, to want to know what it meant.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Swayne, “just sympathy, miss. I’m one as has had my troubles, and as don’t like to be told that they ain’t troubles at all. The minister at the chapel is ’most as bad, for he says they’re blessins in disguise—as if Swayne being weakly and awful worritin’ when his rheumatism’s bad, could ever be a blessin’. And as for speaking to the rector, you might as well speak to the Mere, and better too, for that’s got no answer ready. When a poor body sees a clergyman, it’s their comfort to talk a bit and to tell all as they’re going through. You can tell Mr. Hardcastle I said it, if you please. Lord bless us! I don’t need to go so far if it’s only to hear as other folks is worse off. There’s old Betty at the lodge, and there’s them poor creatures next door, and most all in the village, I’m thankful to say, is worse off nor we are; but I would like to know what’s the good of a clergyman if he won’t listen to you rational, and show a bit of sympathy for what you’ve com’d through.”
Perhaps Sara’s attention had wandered during this speech, or perhaps she was tired of the subject; at all events, looking round her with a little impatience as she listened, her eye was caught by the little card with “Lodgings” printed thereon which hung in Mrs. Swayne’s parlor window. It recalled her standing grievance, and she took action accordingly at once, as was her wont.
“What is the good of that?” she said, pointing to it suddenly. “I think you ought to keep your parlor to sit in, you who are so well off; but, at least, it can’t do you any good to hang it up there—nobody can see it but people who come to us at Brownlows; and you don’t expect them to take lodgings here.”
“Begging your pardon, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, solemnly, “It’s been that good to me that the lodgings is took.”
“Then why do you keep it up to aggravate people?” said Sara; “It makes me wild always when I pass the door. Why do you keep it there?”
“Lodgers is but men,” said Mrs. Swayne, “or women, to be more particular. I can’t never be sure as I’ll like ’em; and they’re folks as never sees their own advantages. It might be as we didn’t suit, or they wasn’t satisfied, or objected to Swayne a-smoking when he’s bad with the rheumatism, which is a thing I wouldn’t put a stop to not for forty lodgers; for it’s the only thing as keeps him from worritin’. So I always keeps it up; it’s the safest way in the end.”
“I think it is a wretched sort of way,” cried Sara, impetuously. “I wonder how you can confess that you have so little faith in people; instead of trying to like them and getting friends, to be always ready to see them go off. I couldn’t have servants in the house like that: they might just as well go to lodge in a cotton-mill or the work-house. There can’t be any human relations between you.”
“Relations!” said Mrs. Swayne, with a rising color. “If you think my relations are folks as go and live in lodgings, you’re far mistaken, miss. It’s well known as we come of comfortable families, both me and Swayne—folks as keeps a good house over their heads. That’s our sort. As for taking ’em in, it’s mostly for charity as I lets my lodgings—for the sake of poor folks as wants a little fresh air. You was a different looking-creature when you come out of that stuffy bit of a town. I’ve a real good memory, and I don’t forget. I remember when your papa come and bought the place off the old family; and vexed we all was—but I don’t make no doubt as it was all for the best.”
“I don’t think the old family, as you call them, were much use to anybody in Dewsbury,” said Sara, injudiciously, with a thrill of indignation and offended pride.
“Maybe not, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, meekly; “they was the old Squires, and come natural. I don’t say no more, not to give offense; but you was a pale little thing then, and not much wonder neither, coming out of a house in a close street as is most fit for a mill, as you was saying. It made a fine difference in you.”
“Our house in Masterton is the nicest house I know,” said Sara, who was privately furious. “I always want papa to take me back in the winter. Brownlows is very nice, but it is not so much of a house after all.”
“It was a different name then,” said Mrs. Swayne, significantly; “some on us never can think of the new name; and I don’t think as you’d like living in a bit of a poky town after this, if your papa was to let you try.”
“On the contrary, I should like it excessively,” said Sara, with much haughtiness; and then she gave Mrs. Swayne a condescending little nod, and drew up a corner of her dress, which had drooped upon the snow. “I hope your lodgers will be nice, and that you will take down your ticket,” she said; “but I must go now to see my poor people.” Mrs. Swayne was so startled by the sudden but affable majesty with which the young lady turned away, that she almost dropped her a courtesy in her surprise. But in fact she only dropped her handkerchief, which was as large as a towel, and which she had a way of holding rolled up like a ball in her hand. It was quite true that the old family had been of little use to any body at Dewsbury; and that they were almost squalid in their poverty and pretensions and unrespected misfortune before they went away; and that all the little jobs in carpentry which kept Mr. Swayne in employment had been wanting during the old régime; in short, it was on Brownlows, so to speak—on the shelfs and stands, and pegs and bits of cupboard, and countless repairs which were always wanting in the now prosperous house—that Swayne’s Cottages had been built. This, however, did not make his wife compunctious. She watched Sara’s active footsteps over the snow, and saw her pretty figure disappear into the white waste, and was glad she had given her that sting. To keep this old family bottled up, and give the new people a little dose from time to time of the nauseous residue, was one of her pleasures. She went in and arranged the card more prominently in her parlor window, and felt glad that she had put it there; and then she went and sat with her poor neighbor next door, and railed at the impudent little thing in her furs and velvets, whom the foolish father made such an idol of. But she made her poor neighbor’s tea all the same, and frightened away the children, and did the woman good, not being bad any more than most people are who cherish a little comfortable animosity against the nearest great folks. Mrs. Swayne, however, not being democratic, was chiefly affected by the fact that the Masterton lawyer’s family had no right to be great folks, which was a reasonable grievance in its way.
