But certain of the minor titles headed City Firms, she had heard; certain of the families were avowedly commercial.

'They follow suit,' her father said at Creckholt, after he had found her mother weeping, and decided instantly to quit and fly once more.

But if they followed suit in such a way, then Mr.Durance must be right when he called the social English the most sheepy of sheep:--and Nesta could not consent to the cruel verdict, she adored her compatriots.

Incongruities were pacified for her by the suggestion of her quick wits, that her father, besides being a merchant, was a successful speculator; and perhaps the speculator is not liked by merchants; or they were jealous of him; or they did not like his being both.
She pardoned them with some tenderness, on a suspicion that a quaint old high-frilled bleached and puckered Puritanical rectitude (her thoughts rose in pictures) possibly condemned the speculator as a description of gambler.

An erratic severity in ethics is easily overlooked by the enthusiast for things old English.