Sarahs School Friend | Page 3

as good-lookin' as Sairey, nor you either; nor 'alf such a lady. W'y, she might be a duchess's daughter! Every one says so,' cried his mother, woman-like, dwelling upon the subject of good looks rather than on her son's criticism of Sarah's cleverness.
'That's only education. You'd have been just as duchessy if you'd been educated,' insisted her son, hesitating for a word to use instead of lady-like, for he would not, even to himself, own that his mother was not a lady in the world's acceptation of the word.
What every one in the West Riding, or heavy woollen district, said was, what a most extraordinary thing it was that the son and daughter of that brute Clay should be so refined when their father was such a rough, uncouth man! The Clay family was one of the many instances in Yorkshire of the mill-hand who rose from being a labourer to be the owner of a large mill and enormous wealth, and who gave to his children the education he had never received himself. But though in most cases the children were better educated and superior in outward seeming to their parents, it was not often that the contrast was so marked. In this case it may have been caused by the fact that Mark Clay, instead of marrying a mill-lass, had taken to wife a very pretty, delicate-looking girl from London, who had bequeathed her good looks to her two children. She, or rather her husband--for little Mrs Clay had no voice in the matter--had sent the boy to Eton and then to Cambridge, and the girl to what her mother called a ''igh-class, fashionable school'--which, if high prices are any criterion, it certainly was.
Mrs Clay shook her head at her son's last remark. 'I should never 'ave made a duchess. I was always timid, an' couldn't 'old up my 'ead as Sairey does. It's somethin' in you both, though I don't 'old wi' Sairey speakin' of 'er father in the way she does.'
'I should think not, indeed,' put in her son.
'Still, we can't expect 'er to respect us as much as she would if we 'ad the same good manners an' way o' talkin' that she an' you 'ave. It's natural she should feel superior, an' show it, too,' argued the poor woman with some shrewdness; 'an' I've told your dad that it was only w'at 'e might 'ave expected.'
'Pray, don't talk of Sarah's manners being good, nor her way of talking either; they're both as bad as bad can be,' said George Clay, with his soft drawl.
'W'y, you don't never mean to say that, George, an' after all the pounds dad's paid for 'er? For goodness' sake, don't tell 'im, or 'e'll 'alf-kill 'er--'e would! You don't know your father as I do,' cried the mother in consternation.
An expression of annoyance came over her son's face at these words. 'Don't make the pater out worse than he is, my dear mother. He may be violent at times, but I hope he knows better than to use physical force. Anyway, I shall not tell him anything of the sort, and when I say her manners are bad and her language unlady-like'----
'But that's just w'at 'e thinks it isn't; an' though 'e gets angry, 'e thinks a lot o' 'er. An' w'en I don't like the words she uses sometimes, 'e says I don't know the way o' society; that the aristocracy speak like that, an' be'ave so, too.'
'Well, so they do, some of them,' admitted her son.
But before he could finish his remark his mother interrupted him. 'Well, then, that's w'at 'e wants; so if you tell 'im that, dear, 'e'll be in a good temper for the rest o' the evenin'.' She looked wistfully at her son as she made this suggestion.
He laughed good-humouredly. 'All right, mother; if Sarah gives him some of her cheek to-night I'll tell him it's the fashion of the day. It's true enough; but, oh dear! I wish you wouldn't have such fearfully long dinners. That's not the fashion; it's the thing to starve.'
'It's not a bit o' good you tellin' 'im that, for 'e says 'e can afford a Lord Mayor's banquet every day 'e likes, an' 'e 'll 'ave it, an' 'e can't abear to see you sittin' there pickin' at a bit o' chicken, an' not even takin' whisky-an'-soda wi' him.'
'Well, I must go and dress for this Lord Mayor's banquet, and so must you, mother; so go and put on your black silk,' he remarked, as he rose lazily from his arm-chair.
'Not that old dress, dear; it's so plain an' dowdy. I've somethin' better than that;' and, looking as pleased as a young girl at his interest in her dress, she went off nodding and smiling at the