religious, is based on an adamantine rock of paltry snobbery.'

It was impossible to restrain my indignation.

'I am aware, Henry,' replied my mother calmly, 'that it is one of the
fashions of the hour for young men of family to adopt the language of
Radical newspapers. In a country like this the affectation does no
great harm, I grant, and my only serious objection to it is that it
implies in young men of one's own class a lack of originality which
is a little humiliating. I am aware that your cousin, Percy Aylwin,
of Rington Manor, used to talk in the same strain as this, and ended
by joining the Gypsies. But I came to warn you, Henry, I came to urge
you not to injure this poor girl's reputation by such scenes as that
I witnessed this morning.'

I remained silent. The method of my mother's attack had taken me by
surprise. Her sagacity was so much greater than mine, her power of
fence was so much greater, her stroke was so much deadlier, that in
all our encounters I had been conquered.

'It is for the girl's own sake that I speak to you,' continued my
mother. 'She was deeply embarrassed at your method of address, and
well she might be, seeing that it will be, for a long time to come,
the subject of discussion in all the beer-houses which her father
frequents.'

'You speak as though she were answerable for her father's faults,' I
said, with heat.

'No,' said my mother; 'but _your_ father is the owner of Raxton Hall,