wouldn't depend upon that of your relations, even your nearest. I don't
know much about lords, and it does try my patience (though she is just as
sweet as she can live) to hear her talk as if it were a matter of course
that I should.

I feel as if it were right to ask her as often as I can if she doesn't
consider every one equal; but she always says she doesn't, and she
confesses that she doesn't think she is equal to "Lady
Something-or-other," who is the wife of that relation of her father. I
try and persuade her all I can that she is; but it seems as if she didn't
want to be persuaded; and when I ask her if Lady So-and-so is of the same
opinion (that Miss Vane isn't her equal), she looks so soft and pretty
with her eyes, and says, "Of course she is!" When I tell her that this
is right down bad for Lady So-and-so, it seems as if she wouldn't believe
me, and the only answer she will make is that Lady So-and-so is
"extremely nice." I don't believe she is nice at all; if she were nice,
she wouldn't have such ideas as that. I tell Miss Vane that at Bangor we
think such ideas vulgar; but then she looks as though she had never heard
of Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she _is_ so sweet. If she
isn't angry with the people who make her feel that way, I am angry for
her. I am angry with her brother too, for she is evidently very much
afraid of him, and this gives me some further insight into the subject.
She thinks everything of her brother, and thinks it natural that she
should be afraid of him, not only physically (for this _is_ natural, as
he is enormously tall and strong, and has very big fists), but morally
and intellectually. She seems unable, however, to take in any argument,
and she makes me realise what I have often heard--that if you are timid
nothing will reason you out of it.

Mr. Vane, also (the brother), seems to have the same prejudices, and when