fellow, and calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's
too bad when a girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him,
because he isn't what she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a
gentleman? Answer me that, Mary."

It was one of George's few good things that he had a great
opinion of his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such
as to enable Mary to answer his appeal in a way he would have
counted satisfactory. She thought of her own father, and was
silent.

"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she
answered. "Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he
were a shopkeeper or a blacksmith."

"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had
been born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few
acres of land I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that."

"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you
would, of course," answered Mary.

Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there
was a good deal more of a difference between them than therein
lay. But common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to
understand that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or
lands, or money, or intellect, is a small affair in the
difference between men.

"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said.