"You don't imagine the son of a lawyer would be likely to marry a shopkeeper's daughter!" she said.
"Why not ?" returned Hesper, with a look of non-intelligence.
"Because a professional man is so far above a tradesman." "Oh!" said Hesper.

"-- But he should have told me if he wanted to bring his wife with him.

I don't care who she is, so long as she dresses decently and holds her tongue.

What are you laughing at, Mary ?" Hesper called it laughing, but Mary was only smiling.
"I can't help being amused," answered Mary, "that you should think it such an out-of-the-way thing to be a shopkeeper's daughter, and here am I all the time, feeling quite comfortable, and proud of the shopkeeper whose daughter I am." "Oh! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Hesper, growing hot for, I almost believe, the first time in her life, and therein, I fear, showing a drop of bad blood from somewhere, probably her father's side of the creation; for not even the sense of having hurt the feelings of an inferior can make the thoroughbred woman of the world aware of the least discomfort; and here was Hesper, not only feeling like a woman of God's making, but actually showing it!--"How cruel of me!" she went on.
"But, you see, I never think of you--when I am talking to you--as--as one of that class!" Mary laughed outright this time: she was amused, and thought it better to show it, for that would show also she was not hurt.

Hesper, however, put it down to insensibility.
"Surely, dear Mrs.Redmain," said Mary, "you can not think the class to which I belong in itself so objectionable that it is rude to refer to it in my hearing!" "I am very sorry," repeated Hesper, but in a tone of some offense: it was one thing to confess a fault; another to be regarded as actually guilty of the fault.