"You say they fall into our ways as if they had been born here," he
began. "Doesn't it occur to you that they may find them perfectly
natural?"
"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.
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