“To hold people of high rank cheaply; to imagine that they must be all cheats and impositions.” “No,” said she, calmly but resolutely. “If he taught me anything on this subject, it was to attribute to persons of exalted station very lofty qualities. What I have to fear is that my expectation will be far above the reality. I can imagine what they might be, but I 'm not so sure it is what I shall find them.” “You had better not say so to my sister-in-law,” said Beecher, jeeringly. “It is not my intention,” said she, with the same calm voice. “I make that remark,” resumed he, “because she has what some people would call exaggerated notions about the superiority of the well-born over all inferior classes; indeed, she is scarcely just in her estimate of low people.” “Low people are really to be pitied!” said she, with a slight laugh; and Beecher stole a quick glance at her, and was silent. He was not able long to maintain this reserve. The truth was, he felt an invincible desire to recur to the class in life from which Lizzy came, and to speak disparagingly of all who were humbly born. Not that this vulgarity was really natural to him,--far from it. With all his blemishes and defects he was innately too much a gentleman to descend to this. The secret impulse was to be revenged of Grog Davis; to have the one only possible vengeance on the man that had “done him;” and even though that was only to be exacted through Davis's daughter, it pleased him. And so he went on to tell of the prejudices--absurd, of course--that persons like Lady Georgina would persist in entertaining about common people. “You 'll have to be so careful in all your intercourse with her,” said he; “easy, natural, of course, but never familiar; she would n't stand it.” “I will be careful,” said Lizzy, calmly. “The chances are, she 'll find out some one of the name, and ask you, in her own half-careless way, 'Are you of the Staffordshire Davises? or do you belong to the Davises of such a place?'” “If she should, I can only reply that I don't know,” said Lizzy. “Oh! but you must n't say that,” laughed out Beecher, who felt a sort of triumph over what he regarded as his wife's simplicity. “You would not, surely, have me say that I was related to these people?” “No, not exactly that; but, still, to say that you didn't know whether you were or not, would be a terrible blunder! It would amount to a confession that you were Davises of nowhere at all.” “Which is about the truth, perhaps,” said she, in the same tone. “Oh! truth is a very nice thing, but not always pleasant to tell.” “But don't you think you could save me from an examination in which I am so certain to acquit myself ill, by simply stating that you have married a person without rank, station, or fortune? These facts once understood, I feel certain that her Ladyship will never allude to them unpleasantly.”