"
Mr Williams, who had made a brief note on his shirt cuff,
restored his pencil to his waistcoat pocket. "I shall
oppose a change of venue," said he.
Chapter V
It was confidently expected by the Murchison family that
when Stella was old enough she would be a good deal in
society. Stella, without doubt, was well equipped for
society; she had exactly those qualities which appealed
to it in Elgin, among which I will mention two--the
quality of being able to suggest that she was quite as
good as anybody without saying so, and the even more
important quality of not being any better. Other things
being equal--those common worldly standards that prevailed
in Elgin as well as anywhere else in their degree--other
things being equal, this second simple quality was perhaps
the most important of all. Mr and Mrs Murchison made no
claim and small attempt upon society. One doubts whether,
with children coming fast and hard times long at the
door, they gave the subject much consideration; but if
they did, it is highly unlikely to have occurred to them
that they were too good for their environment. Yet in a
manner they were. It was a matter of quality, of spiritual
and mental fabric; they were hardly aware that they had
it, but it marked them with a difference, and a difference
is the one thing a small community, accustomed comfortably
to scan its own intelligible averages, will not tolerate.
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