And at last there came a question and an answer,--a word or two on one side, and then a word or two on the other, from which Clara got a wound which was very sore to her.
"I have always pictured to myself," she said, "your mother as a woman who has been very handsome." "She is still a handsome woman, though she is over sixty." "Tall, I suppose ?" "Yes, tall, and with something of--of--what shall I say--dignity, about her." "She is not grand, I hope ?" "I don't know what you call grand." "Not grand in a bad sense;--I'm sure she is not that.

But there are some ladies who seem to stand so high above the level of ordinary females as to make us who are ordinary quite afraid of them." "My mother is certainly not ordinary," said Captain Aylmer.
"And I am," said Clara, laughing.

"I wonder what she'll say to me,--or, rather, what she will think of me." Then there was a moment's silence, after which Clara, still laughing, went on.

"I see, Fred, that you have not a word of encouragement to give me about your mother." "She is rather particular," said Captain Aylmer.
Then Clara drew herself up, and ceased to laugh.

She had called herself ordinary with that half-insincere depreciation of self which is common to all of us when we speak of our own attributes, but which we by no means intend that they who hear us shall accept as strictly true, or shall re-echo as their own approved opinions.