Wardour,
Godfrey's mother, that she had seen the growth of an intimacy
between the two young women. The society of a shopwoman, she
often remarked, was far from suitable for one who, as the
daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the position
of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a country
surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great
liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same
time, however much she would have her consider herself the
superior of Mary Marston, she by no means treated her as her own
equal, and Letty could not help being afraid of her aunt, as she
called her.
The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils--the
one the stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending
devil of benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for
it; and Letty, although the child of a loved cousin, must not
presume upon that, or forget that the wife and mother of long-
descended proprietors of certain acres of land was greatly the
superior of any man who lived by the exercise of the best-
educated and most helpful profession. She counted herself a
devout Christian, but her ideas of rank, at least--therefore
certainly not a few others--were absolutely opposed to the
Master's teaching: they who did least for others were her
aristocracy.
Now, Letty was a simple, true-hearted girl, rather slow, who
honestly tried to understand her aunt's position with regard to
her friend.
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