"Shop-girls," her aunt had said, "are not fitting
company for you, Letty."
"I do not know any other shop-girls, aunt," Letty replied, with
hidden trembling; "but, if they are not nice, then they are not
like Mary. She's downright good; indeed she is, aunt!--a great
deal, ever so much, better than I am."
"That may well be," answered Mrs. Wardour, "but it does not make
a lady of her."
"I am sure," returned Letty, bewildered, "on Sundays you could
not tell the difference between her and any other young lady."
"Any other well-dressed young woman, my dear, you should say. I
believe shop-girls do call their companions young ladies, but
that can not justify the application of the word. I am scarcely
bound to speak of my cook as a lady because letters come
addressed to her as Miss Tozer. If the word 'lady' should sink at
last to common use, as in Italy every woman is Donna, we must
find some other word to ex-press what _used_ to be meant by
it."
"Is Mrs. Cropper a lady, aunt?" asked Letty, after a pause, in
which her brains, which were not half so muddled as she thought
them, had been busy feeling after firm ground in the morass of
social distinction thus opened under her.
"She is received as such," replied Mrs. Wardour, but with doubled
stiffness, through which ran a tone of injury.
"Would you receive her, aunt, if she called upon you?"
"She has horses and servants, and everything a woman of the world
can desire; but I should feel I was bowing the knee to Mammon
were I to ask her to my house.
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