lood, or a
Hebraic ancestor--and Jews were not received as boarders in the school.
Now, loud as money made itself in this young community, effectual as it
was in cloaking shortcomings, it did not go all the way: inherited
instincts and traditions were not so easily subdued. Just some of the
wealthiest, too, were aware that their antecedents would not stand a
close scrutiny; and thus a mighty respect was engendered in them for
those who had nothing to fear. Moreover, directly you got away from the
vastly rich, class distinctions were observed with an exactitude such
as can only obtain in an exceedingly mixed society. The three
professions alone were sacrosanct. The calling of architect, for
example, or of civil engineer, was, if a fortune had not been
accumulated, utterly without prestige; trade, any connection with
trade--the merest bowing acquaintance with buying and selling--was a
taint that nothing could remove; and those girls who were related to
shopkeepers, or, more awful still, to publicans, would rather have
bitten their tongues off than have owned to the disgrace.

Yet Laura knew very well that good birth and an aristocratic appearance
would not avail her, did the damaging fact leak out that Mother worked
for her living. Work in itself was bad enough--how greatly to be envied
were those whose fathers did nothing more active than live on their
money! But the additional circumstance of Mother being a woman made
things ten times worse: ladies did not work; some one always left them
enough to live on, and if he didn't, well, then he, too, shared the
ignominy. So Laura went in fear and trembling lest the truth should
come to light--in that case, she would be a pariah indeed--went in
hourly dread of Lilith betraying her. Nothing, however, happened--at
least as far as she could discover--and she sought to propitiate Lilith
in every possible way. For the time being, though, anxiety turned her
into a porcupine, ready to erect her quills at a touch. She was ever on
the look-out for an allusion to her mother's position, and for the
slight that was bound to accompany it.

Even the governesses noticed the change in her.

Three of them sat one evening round the fire in Mrs. Gurley's
sitting-room, with their feet on the fender. The girls had gone to bed;
it was Mrs. Gurley's night off, and as Miss Day was also on leave, the
three who were left could draw in more closely than usual. Miss
Snodgrass had made the bread into to