“I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Northcote; what an unexpected pleasure to see you here!”
“It is a most unexpected pleasure for me, I assure you,” he said, “and a very great one.” He spoke with unaffected honesty; for indeed his plunge into the society of Salem Chapel had given him a shock not easily got over, and the appearance of a being of his own species, among all these excellent poulterers and grocers, was a relief unspeakable; and then he added, “May I walk with you, if you are going to walk?”
“Surely,” said Phoebe with momentary hesitation, and it was just at this moment that she perceived Ursula on the other side of the road, and, glad of the diversion, waved her hand to her, and said, “How do you do?”
“A friend of yours?” said Mr. Northcote, following her gesture with his eyes, and feeling more and more glad that he had met her. “I passed those young ladies just now, and heard some of their conversation, which amused me. Do they belong to our people? If you will not be angry, Miss Beecham, I must say that I should be glad to meet somebody belonging to us, who is not—who is more like—the people one meets elsewhere.”
“Well,” said Phoebe, “we are always talking of wanting something original; I think on the whole I am of your opinion; still there is nothing very great or striking about most of the people one meets anywhere.”
“Yes; society is flat enough,” said the young man. “But—it is strange and rather painful, though perhaps it is wrong to say so—why, I wonder, are all our people of one class? Perhaps you have not seen much of them here? All of one class, and that—”
“Not an attractive class,” said Phoebe, with a little sigh. “Yes, I know.”
“Anything but an attractive class; not the so-called working men and suchlike. One can get on with them. It is very unpleasant to have to say it; buying and selling now as we have it in Manchester does not contract the mind. I suppose we all buy and sell more and less. How is it? When it is tea and sugar—”
“Or butter and cheese,” said Phoebe with a laugh, which she could not quite keep from embarrassment. “I must be honest and tell you before you go any further. You don’t know that I belong to the Tozers, Mr. Northcote, who are in that line of business. Don’t look so dreadfully distressed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you, had you not been sure to find out. Old Mr. Tozer is my grandfather, and I am staying there. It is quite simple. Papa came to Carlingford when he was a young clergyman, newly ordained. He was pastor at Salem Chapel, and married mamma, who was the daughter of one of the chief members. I did not know myself when I came to Carlingford that they actually kept a shop, and I did not like it. Don’t apologize, please. It is a very difficult question,” said Phoebe philosophically, partly to ease herself, partly to set him at his ease, “what is best to do in such a case. To be educated in another sphere and brought down to this, is hard. One cannot feel the same for one’s relations; and yet one’s poor little bit of education, one’s petty manners, what are these to interfere with blood relationships? And to keep everybody down to the condition they were born, why, that is the old way—”
“Miss Beecham, I don’t know what to say. I never meant—I could not tell. There are excellent, most excellent people in all classes.”
“Exactly so,” said Phoebe, with a laugh. “We all know that; one man is as good as another—if not better. A butterman is as good as a lord; but—” she added, with a little elevation of her eyebrows and shrug of her shoulders, “not so pleasant to be connected with. And you don’t say anything about my difficulty, Mr. Northcote. You don’t realize it perhaps, as I do. Which is best: for everybody to continue in the position he was born in, or for an honest shopkeeper to educate his children and push them up higher until they come to feel themselves members of a different class,
