Volume I Part 15 (1/2)

”Well, I hope she will go with us, and we shall have a chance of seeing her,” said Mrs. Carleton.

”If she were only a few years older, it is my belief you would see enough of her, Ma'am,” said young Rossitur.

The haughty coldness of Mr. Carleton's look, at this speech, could not be surpa.s.sed.

”But she has beauty of feature, too, has she not?” Mrs.

Carleton asked again of her son.

”Yes, in very high degree. The contour of the eye and brow I never saw finer.”

”It is a little odd,” said Mrs. Evelyn, with the slightest touch of a piqued air, (she had some daughters at home) ?

”that is a kind of beauty one is apt to a.s.sociate with high breeding, and certainly you very rarely see it anywhere else; and Major Ringgan, however distinguished and estimable, as I have no doubt he was, ? and this child must have been brought up with no advantages, here in the country.”

”My dear madam,” said Mr. Carleton, smiling a little, ”this high breeding is a very fine thing, but it can neither be given nor bequeathed; and we cannot entail it.”

”But it can be taught, can't it?”

”If it could be taught, it is to be hoped it would be oftener learned,” said the young man, drily.

”But what do we mean, then, when we talk of the high breeding of certain cla.s.ses ? and families? and why are we not disappointed when we look to find it in connection with certain names and positions in society?”

”I do not know,” said Mr. Carleton.

”You don't mean to say, I suppose, Mr. Carleton,” said Thorn, bridling a little, ”that it is a thing independent of circ.u.mstances, and that there is no value in blood?”

”Very nearly ? answering the question as you understand it.”

”May I ask how you understand it?”

”As you do, Sir.”

”Is there no high breeding then in the world?” asked good- natured Mrs. Thorn, who could be touched on this point of family.

”There is very little of it. What is commonly current under the name, is merely counterfeit notes which pa.s.s from hand to hand of those who are bankrupt in the article.”

”And to what serve, then,” said Mrs. Evelyn, colouring, ”the long lists of good old names which even you, Mr. Carleton, I know, do not disdain?”

”To endorse the counterfeit notes,” said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

”Guy, you are absurd!” said his mother. ”I will not sit at the table and listen to you if you talk such stuff. What do you mean?”

”I beg your pardon, mother, you have misunderstood me,” said he, seriously. ”Mind, I have been talking, not of ordinary conformity to what the world requires, but of that fine perfection of mental and moral const.i.tution, which, in its own natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in every occasion or circ.u.mstance of life. It is the pure gold, and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not curiously prepared the soil, it is in vain to try to make it grow. _This_ is not very often met with!”

”No, indeed,” said Mrs. Carleton; ” but you are so fastidiously nice in all your notions! ? at this rate nothing will ever satisfy you.”

”I don't think it is so very uncommon,” said Mrs. Thorn. ”It seems to me one sees as much of it as can be expected, Mr.

Carleton.”

Mr. Carleton pared his apple with an engrossed air.

”O no, Mrs. Thorn,” said Mrs. Evelyn, ”I don't agree with you ? I don't think you often see such a combination as Mr.