y dear; but you ain't going to hide yourself
up in a corner," said Tozer. And, "Never fear, I'll take her wherever
it's fit for her to go to," his wife added, looking at her with pride.
Phoebe felt, in addition to all the rest, that she was to be made a show
of to all the connection, as a specimen of what the Tozer blood could
come to, and she did not even feel sure that something of the same
feeling had not been in her mother's bosom when she fitted her out so
perfectly. Phoebe Tozer had left contemporaries and rivals in
Carlingford, and the thought of dazzling and surpassing them in her
offspring as in her good fortune had still some sweetness for her mind.
"Mamma meant it too!" Phoebe junior said to herself with a sigh.
Unfortunately for her, she did everybody credit who belonged to her, and
she must resign herself to pay the penalty. Perhaps there was some
compensation in that thought.

And indeed Phoebe did not wonder at her grandmother's pride when she
walked up with her to High Street, supporting her on her arm. She
recognised frankly that there were not many people like herself about,
few who had so much the air of good society, and not one who was so well
dressed. There were excuses to be made then for the anxiety of the old
people to produce her in the little world which was everything to them,
and with her usual candour and good sense she acknowledged this, though
she winced a little when an occasional acquaintance drifted across Mrs.
Tozer's path, and was introduced with pride to "my granddaughter," and
thrust forth an ungloved hand, with an exclamation of, "Lord bless us,
Phoebe's eldest! I hope I see you well, Miss." Phoebe continued urbane,
though it cost her many a pang. She had to keep on a perpetual argument
with herself as she went along slowly, holding up her poor grandmother's
tottering steps. "If this is what we have really sprung from, this is my
own class, and I ought to like it; if I don't like it, it must be my
fault. I have no right to feel myself better than they are. It is not
position that makes any difference, but individual character," Phoebe
said to herself. She got as much consolation out of this as is to be
extracted from such rueful arguments in general; but it was after all
indifferent comfort, and had not her temperament given her a strong hold
of herself, and power of subduing her impulses, it is much to be feared
that Phoebe would have dropped her grandmother's arm as they approach