butcher's daughter," said Sophia, and sarcasm was only a small
ingredient in the speech.

"We were quite grieved about it," said Miss Bennett, sincerely.

Sophia also felt sorry, but it was not her way to say so. She was more
interested in remarking upon the singular method of getting butcher's
meat then in vogue at Chellaston. A Frenchman, a butcher in a small way,
drove from door to door with his stock, cutting and weighing his joints
in an open box-sleigh. To see the frozen meat thus manipulated in the
midst of the snow had struck Sophia as one of the most novel features of
their present way of life. Miss Bennett, however, could hardly be
expected to feel its picturesqueness. Her parents did not fancy this
vendor's meat, and at present they usually killed their own. Her father,
she said, had grown quite dexterous in the art.

"Really!" cried Sophia. This was an item of real interest, for it
suggested to her for the first time the idea that a gentleman could
slaughter an ox. She was not shocked; it was simply a new idea, which
she would have liked to enlarge on; but good-breeding forbade, for Miss
Bennett preferred to chat about the visit of the Prince, and she
continued to do so in a manner so lively that Sophia found it no dull
hearing.

"And, do you know," she cried, "what Bertha Nash did? The Nashes, you
know, are of quite a common family, although, as Dr. Nash is everybody's
doctor, of course we are all on good terms with them. Well, Bertha asked
the Prince how his mother was!" She stopped.

"I suppose he knew whom she was talking about?"