Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/161

 stereotyped commonplaces that most people can find to say with their senses blindfolded. Mrs. Hale was making rather more exertion in her answers, captivated by some real old lace which Mrs. Thornton wore; "lace," as she afterwards observed to Dixon, "of that old English point which has not been made for this seventy years, and which cannot be bought. It must have been an heir-loom, and shows that she had ancestors." So the owner of the ancestral lace became worthy of something more than the languid exertion to be agreeable to a visitor, by which Mrs. Hale's efforts at conversation would have been otherwise bounded. And presently, Margaret, racking her brain to talk to Fanny, heard her mother and Mrs. Thornton plunge into the interminable subject of servants.

"I suppose you are not musical," said Fanny, "as I see no piano."

"I am fond of hearing good music; I cannot play well myself; and papa and mamma don't care much about it; so we sold our old piano when we came here."

"I wonder how you can exist without one. It almost seems to me a necessary of life."

"Fifteen shillings a week, and three saved out of them!" thought Margaret to herself. "But she must have been very young. She probably has forgotten her own personal experience. But she must know of those days." Margaret's manner had an extra tinge of coldness in it when she next spoke.

"You have good concerts here, I believe."

"Oh, yes! Delicious! Too crowded, that is the worst. The directors admit so indiscriminately. But