“No, it does not at all.  Think of it.  Struggling against the savageness of man and nature must have roughened our manners a little, just as working on the ground roughens one’s hands.  It is healthy exercise; but, then, it tells, and we must expect that.”  She looked at her husband with such serenity as she spoke that he had no difficulty in remembering that she was the granddaughter of a Scottish earl and that he had been proud to give his children a lady for their mother.  It seemed odd to him that both she and Stephen should have such an air of high birth, and yet be so indifferent to its prerogatives, so unambitious.  “It is their good breeding;” she went on, “if you put them out into the wigwams they would make the Indians feel that eating with one’s fingers was quite a thing to be enjoyed.”

It was cruel; perhaps the speaker did not realize how cruel.  But, then, she knew that the Colonel was thoroughly padded with vanity and that it must be a very skilful thrust, and a very vigorous one, that could wound him fatally.

“Faith,” he began after a pause, “you have never been abroad, you have not observed as I have done, you—.”  He was gaining importance and impressiveness of tone as he went on; it was a pity that the sound of wheels and of horses’ hoofs in the avenue interrupted what would have been one of his best presentations of the subject and have put him into an impregnable position.  As it was, he had but to imagine himself there and forget his wife’s opinion, which he did not find any difficulty in doing.  The wheels were those of Colonel Pepperell’s carriage; put together with English thoroughness, it had all the weight and unwieldiness of vehicles of that time.  Lady Dacre, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Eveleigh descended from it; they had been spending the morning together.  Sir Temple, Edmonson, Bulchester, and their host, on horseback, came galloping up as the carriage stopped.  They had taken a longer and pleasanter road and had arrived on the moment.  Sir Temple alighted with his face beaming with pleasure, for he had enjoyed the exercise.  Lady Dacre had never looked better, and she had seen something more of provincial life and ways.  He meant to travel over the world sometime; he liked to see new things.  After dinner, when the guests were in the garden, he joined his wife for a moment, and told her what had amused him by the way.  “We went by one of those little houses so numerous about here,” he said, “and an old man was mending his fence.  It needed it badly enough.  Archdale, as he went by, nodded to him pleasantly and called out an encouragement of his improvements.  The old man looked up hammer in hand, and I expected to see something like what I should have had, you know, from the tenants at Alderly.  But, Flo, he was so occupied, staring at Edmonson, whom he looked at first, that I had no chance at all with him, and poor Archdale didn’t get even a nod.  He just dropped his hammer and stood there agape.  I think Archdale was annoyed at the exhibition of ill manners, for he talked very little the rest of the way here.  Edmonson was so amused he could scarcely help chuckling over it.  He asked our host if the old man was one of his tenants, and if he had been long on the place, and Archdale said ‘yes.’  Then Edmonson chuckled all the more.”