For though Isabel's regal carriage and low, musical voice, marked her as one of the hated species, her gentleness banished all impression of pride. She treated Dinah's mother with an assumption of friendliness that had in it no trace of condescension, and she was so obviously sincere in her wish to establish a cordial relation that it was impossible to remain ungracious.
"I can't feel that we are strangers," she said, with her rare smile when Dinah had departed to fetch the tea. "Your little Dinah has done so much for me--more than I can ever tell you. That I am to have her for a sister seems almost too good to be true."
"I wonder you think she's good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if she's fit for it."
"If she were a fine lady, I don't think I should think so highly of her," Isabel said gently. "But as to her being unfit to fill a high position, she is only inexperienced and she will learn very quickly. I am willing to teach her all in my power."
"Aye, learn to despise her mother," commented Mrs. Bathurst, with sudden bitterness, "after all the trouble I've taken to make her respect me."
"I should never teach her that," Isabel answered quietly. "And I am sure that she would be quite incapable of learning it. Mrs. Bathurst, do you really think that worldly position is a thing that greatly matters to anyone in the long run? I don't."
It was then that a faint, half-grudging admiration awoke in the elder woman's resentful soul, and she looked at Isabel with the first glimmer of kindliness. "You're right," she said slowly, "it don't matter to those who've got it. But to those who haven't--" her eyes glowed red for a moment--"you don't know how it galls," she said.
And then she flushed dully, realizing that she had made a confidante of one of the hated breed.
But Isabel's hand was on hers in a moment; her eyes, full of understanding, looked earnest friendship into hers. "Oh, I know," she said. "It is the little things that gall us all, until--until some great--some fundamental--sorrow wrenches our very lives in twain. And then--and then--one can almost laugh to think one ever cared about them."