ry of unworldly faith and prayer and self-denial, of
incorruptible public virtue, sturdy resistance of evil, and pursuit of
good.

There is also a literary aroma pervading their circles. Dim
suggestions of "The North American Review," of "The Dial," of
Cambridge,--a sort of vague "_miel-fleur_" of authorship and
poetry,--is supposed to float in the air around them; and it
is generally understood that in their homes exist tastes and
appreciations denied to less favored regions. Almost every one of them
has its great man,--its father, grandfather, cousin, or great uncle,
who wrote a book, or edited a review, or was a president of the United
States, or minister to England, whose opinions are referred to by the
family in any discussion, as good Christians quote the Bible.

It is true that, in some few instances, the _pleroma_ of aristocratic
dignity undergoes a sort of acetic fermentation, and comes out in
ungenial qualities. Now and then, at a public watering-place, a man or
woman appears no otherwise distinguished than by a remarkable talent
for being disagreeable; and it is amusing to find, on inquiry, that
this repulsiveness of demeanor is entirely on account of belonging to
an ancient family.

Such is the tendency of democracy to a general mingling of elements,
that this frigidity is deemed necessary by these good souls to prevent
the commonalty from being attracted by them, and sticking to them,
as straws and bits of paper do to amber. But more generally the
"true-blue" old families are simple and urbane in their manners;
and their pretensions are, as Miss Edgeworth says, presented rather
_intaglio_ than in cameo. Of course, they most thoroughly believe in
themselves, but in a bland and genial way. "_Noblesse oblige_" is with
them a secret spring of gentle address and social suavity. They prefer
their own set and their own ways, and are comfortably sure that what
they do not know is not worth knowing, and what they have not been in
the habit of doing is not worth doing; but still they are indulgent of
the existence of human nature outside of their own circle.

The Seymours and the Fergusons belonged to this sort of people; and,
of course, Mr. John Seymour's marriage afforded them opportunity
for some wholesome moral discipline. The Ferguson girls were frank,
social, magnanimous young women; of that class, to whom the saying or
doing of a rude or unhandsome thing by any human being was an utter
impossibility, and