Mary Marston | Page 4

young women had not more sense than
most of the young men I see in the shop--on both sides of the counter,
George--things would soon be at a fine pass. Nothing better in your
head than in a peacock's!--only that a peacock has the fine feathers he's
so proud of."
"If it were Mr. Wardour now, Mary, that was spreading his tail for you
to see, you would not complain of that peacock!"
A vivid rose blossomed instantly in Mary's cheek. Mr. Wardour was
not even an acquaintance of hers. He was cousin and friend to Letty
Lovel, indeed, but she had never spoken to him, except in the shop.
"It would not be quite out of place if you were to learn a little respect

for your superiors, George," she returned. "Mr. Wardour is not to be
thought of in the same moment with the young men that were in my
mind. Mr. Wardour is not a young man; and he is a gentleman."
She took the glove-box, and turning placed it on a shelf behind her.
"Just so!" remarked George, bitterly. "Any man you don't choose to
count a gentleman, you look down upon! What have you got to do with
gentlemen, I should like to know?"
"To admire one when I see him," answered Mary. "Why shouldn't I? It
is very seldom, and it does me good."
"Oh, yes!" rejoined George, contemptuously. "You call yourself a lady,
but--"
"I do nothing of the kind," interrupted Mary, sharply. "I should like to
be a lady; and inside of me, please God, I will be a lady; but I leave it to
other people to call me this or that. It matters little what any one is
called."
"All right," returned George, a little cowed; "I don't mean to contradict
you. Only just tell me why a well-to-do tradesman shouldn't be a
gentleman as well as a small yeoman like Wardour."
"Why don't you say--as well as a squire, or an earl, or a duke?" said
Mary.
"There you are, chaffing me again! It's hard enough to have every fool
of a lawyer's clerk, or a doctor's boy, looking down upon a fellow, and
calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's too bad when a
girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him, because he isn't what
she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a gentleman? Answer me that,
Mary."
It was one of George's few good things that he had a great opinion of
his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such as to enable Mary
to answer his appeal in a way he would have counted satisfactory. She

thought of her own father, and was silent.
"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she
answered. "Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he were
a shopkeeper or a blacksmith."
"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had been
born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few acres of
land I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that."
"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you would, of
course," answered Mary.
Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there was a
good deal more of a difference between them than therein lay. But
common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to understand
that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or lands, or money, or
intellect, is a small affair in the difference between men.
"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said. "But I
happen to know, for all he rides such a good horse, he's not above
doing the work of a wretched menial, for he polishes his own
stirrup-irons."
"I'm very glad to hear it," rejoined Mary. "He must be more of a
gentleman yet than I thought him."
"Then why should you count him a better gentleman than me?"
"I'm afraid for one thing, you would go with your stirrup-irons rusty,
rather than clean them yourself, George. But I will tell you one thing
Mr. Wardour would not do if he were a shopkeeper: he would not, like
you, talk one way to the rich, and another way to the poor--all
submission and politeness to the one, and familiarity, even to rudeness,
with the other! If you go on like that, you'll never come within sight of
being a gentleman, George--not if you live to the age of Methuselah."
"Thank you, Miss Mary! It's a fine thing to have a lady in the shop!

Shouldn't I just like my father to hear you! I'm blowed if I know how a
fellow is to get on with