the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."

"They are."

"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said--"

"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
way,--in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,--they
don't like it."

"Your cousin Fanny says--"

"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,--what you call
'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."

"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.

"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
dear,"--the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,--"you can't,
for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,--how incapable
of such meanness!"