“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Geraghty. “We all knew long ago, sir, that you’d make a first-class actor; it took but a little small bit of discrimination to see that much.” Ralph laughed. “Well, Geraghty, you mustn’t run away with the notion that I’m a star, for, as a matter of fact, I am nothing but a super at a pound a week. But it’s better to begin at the beginning in a good theatre than to be cock-of-the-walk in a fifth-rate one.” “To be sure, sir, it’s just what I was saying but now to my sister about placing her eldest girl. ‘Never mind how little she earns the first year or two,’ said I, ‘but for heaven’s sake place her in a gentleman’s family, and don’t let her demean herself by takin’ service with them that hasn’t an ounce of breeding to bless themselves with. Let her be kitchen or scullery-maid or what you will, but have her with gentry.’” “Geraghty,” said Ralph, with a mischievous smile, “You have such a respect for birth that it’s my firm conviction you’ll be the last and most staunch supporter left to the House of Lords.” Geraghty laughed all over his face, and his broad shoulders shook. “I’ve seen just a little too much of the aristocracy to pin my faith to them, sir. Handsome is as handsome does, and gentle is as gentle does. But from the House of Lords and their marrin’ and muddlin’--Good Lord deliver us!” Ralph who had purposely provoked this tirade from the Irishman, laughed and changed the subject by an inquiry after Evereld. “Well, thank God, she’s getting on finely, sir. Seems as if there was a special Providence over orphans, and Bridget she says why that’s natural enough, that their parents can see better how to guide them bein’ higher up so to speak. But, however that may be, at first we all thought she’d fret her heart out with missin’ you, sir. But in September, Bridget took her down to the school at Southbourne, and though she was a bit faint-hearted at the notion, she’d no sooner set eyes on the place than she was sure she’d be happy there. Bridget says it’s the most beautiful house and garden you ever saw, and all so comfortable and homelike in spite of the size. And Miss Evereld writes that she’s as happy as the day is long, and that they’re teaching her how to nurse sick folks, and that she’s learnt to darn her own stockin’s--a thing she never got a chance o’ doin’ at home--and to dance the minuet, and to do algebra, and I don’t know what beside. But, from what Bridget told me, I foregathered that it wasn’t a school where they cram them like turkeys for Christmas or geese for a Michaelmas fair, but just a home on a large scale for turnin’ out well-mannered young gentlewomen who’ll have a very good notion how to manage a home on a smaller scale.”