And she thought of her father and his financial unscrupulousness! But none of these could have conceived of life without certain appurtenances of that position to which they and she had been born.

The only one who was self-respecting among the lot was old 'Eliza Countess' as they designated her.

It struck Bridget that Eliza Countess and Colin McKeith had points of character in common--it was true they both came from Glasgow.

She thought of the parsimonious rectitude--which had of course included linen sheets and fine porcelain and shining silver--of old Lady Gaverick's establishment, of its stuffy conventionality--though that had been soothing sometimes after a dose of Upper Bohemia; and Bridget wept, feeling rather like a wilful child who had strayed out of the nursery among a horde of savages.
At last she could bear it no longer.

They were singing now--a terrible thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like the cracking of whips--a bullock drivers' camp ditty.