ich other classes of society would take seriously. It isn't that they
don't feel their own sorrows and sicknesses, but they won't allow other
people to feel them; which is, after all, only a form of good manners."

But Cecil was still rather sulky. "I belong to the middle class and I am
proud of it."

"So do I; but identifying one's self with one class doesn't consist in
abusing all the others, any more than identifying one's self with one
church consists in abusing all the others--though some people seem to
think it does."

"These grand people may entertain you and be pleasant to you in their
way, I don't deny; but they don't regard you as one of themselves unless
you are one," persisted Cecil, with all the bitterness of a small
nature.

Elisabeth smiled with all the sweetness of a large one. "And why should
they? Sir Wilfred and you and I are pleasant enough to them in our own
way, but we don't regard any of them as one of ourselves unless he is
one. They don't show it, and we don't show it: we are all too
well-mannered; but we can not help knowing that they are not artists any
more than they can help knowing that we are not aristocrats. Being
conscious that certain people lack certain qualities which one happens
to possess, is not the same thing as despising those people; and I
always think it as absurd as it is customary to describe one's
consciousness of one's own qualifications as self-respect, and other
people's consciousness of theirs as pride and vanity."

"Then aren't you ever afraid of being looked down upon?" asked Cecil, to
whom any sense of social inferiority was as gall and wormwood.

Elisabeth gazed at him in amazement. "Good gracious, no! Such an idea
never entered into my head. I don't look down upon other people for
lacking my special gifts, so why should they look down upon me for
lacking theirs? Of course they would look down upon me and make fun of
me if I pretended to be one of them, and I should richly deserve it;
just as we look down upon and make fun of Philistines who cover their
walls with paper fans and then pretend that they are artists. Pretence
is always vulgar and always ridiculous; but I know of nothing else that
is either."

"How splendid you are!" exclaimed Cecil, to whose artistic sense
fineness of any kind always appealed, even if it was too high for him to
attain to it. "Therefore you will not despise me for being so inferior
to you--you will only help me to grow more like