A Flock of Girls and Boys | Page 2

of the lot is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
"I don't!" growled Will.
"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to that."
"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name--"
"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of 'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,--
"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em, was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,--
"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,--to run your own family down."
"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of 'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls--farmers' daughters--worked in that way in those old times; the New England histories tell you that."
Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement, for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,--
"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we have now; they were Americans,--farmers' daughters,--most of 'em."
"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth; but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see for herself that you are one of the same sort."
"As the Pelhams?"
"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?" asked Amy, rather indignantly.
"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
"They are."
"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said--"
"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that way,--in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,--they don't like it."
"Your cousin Fanny says--"
"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,--what you call 'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly dear,"--the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,--"you can't, for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,--how incapable of such meanness!"
"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up her forehead.
"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,--you don't mean that you've come all the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice, primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at Punch there