Elmsdale was not in the least grateful for a devotion, as beautiful
as it was extraordinary, and posed herself on the domestic sofa in the
character of a martyr.
Most people accepted the representation as true, and pitied her. Miss
Blake, blissfully forgetful of that state of impecuniosity from which
Mr. Elmsdale's proposal had extricated herself and her sister, never
wearied of stating that "Katty had thrown herself away, and that Mr.
Elmsdale was not fit to tie her shoe-string."
She generously admitted the poor creature did his best; but, according
to Blake, the poor creature's best was very bad indeed.
"It's not his fault, but his misfortune," the lady was wont to remark,
"that he's like dirt beside her. He can't help his birth, and his
dragging-up, and his disreputable trade, or business, or whatever he
likes to call it; he can't help never having had a father nor mother to
speak of, and not a lady or gentleman belonging to the family since it
came into existence. I'm not blaming him, but it is hard for Kathleen,
and she reared as she was, and accustomed to the best society in
Ireland,--which is very different, let me tell you, from the best
anybody ever saw in England."
There were some who thought, if Mrs. Elmsdale could tolerate her
sister's company, she might without difficulty have condoned her
husband's want of acquaintance with some points of grammar and
etiquette; and who said, amongst themselves, that whereas he only
maltreated, Miss Blake mangled every letter in the alphabet; but these
carping critics were in the minority.
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