Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/138

128 with the younger Debarry. It is said that he has enormous wealth, and could purchase every vote in the county that has a price."

"He is come," said Esther. "I heard Miss Jermyn tell her sister that she had seen him going out of her father's room."

"'Tis strange," said Mr Lyon.

"Something extraordinary must have happened," said Esther, "for Mr Jermyn to intend courting us. Miss Jermyn said to me only the other day that she could not think how I came to be so well educated and ladylike. She always thought Dissenters were ignorant, vulgar people. I said, so they were, usually, and Church people also in small towns. She considers herself a judge of what is ladylike, and she is vulgarity personified—with large feet, and the most odious scent on her handkerchief, and a bonnet that looks like 'The Fashion' printed in capital letters."

"One sort of fine-ladyism is as good as another," said Felix.

"No, indeed. Pardon me," said Esther. "A real fine-lady does not wear clothes that flare in people's eyes, or use importunate scents, or make a noise as she moves: she is something refined, and graceful, and charming, and never obtrusive."