"Yes, dear," says the matron, with hypocritical meekness.

"Well," resumes Kitty, "there are things that puzzle me more and more
about him,--things that used to amuse me at first, because I didn't
actually believe that they could be, and that I felt like defying
afterwards. But now I can't bear up against them. They frighten me, and
seem to deny me the right to be what I believe I am."

"I don't understand you, Kitty."

"Why, you've seen how it is with us at home, and how Uncle Jack has
brought us up. We never had a rule for anything except to do what was
right, and to be careful of the rights of others."

"Well."

"Well, Mr. Arbuton seems to have lived in a world where everything is
regulated by some rigid law that it would be death to break. Then, you
know, at home we are always talking about people, and discussing them;
but we always talk of each person for what he is in himself, and I
always thought a person could refine himself if he tried, and was
sincere, and not conceited. But _he_ seems to judge people according to
their origin and locality and calling, and to believe that all
refinement must come from just such training and circumstances as his
own. Without exactly saying so, he puts everything else quite out of the
question. He doesn't appear to dream that there can be any different
opinion. He tramples upon all that I have been taught to believe; and
though I cling the closer to my idols, I can't help, now and then,
trying myself by his criterions; and then I find myself wanting in every
civilized trait, and my whole life coarse and poor, and all my