She laughs at me, and I laugh at myself, when I say (to support my own views) that I know more of the world than she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it I learned when I was a mere child.

But though we laugh, I can remember a good deal.

I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls.
Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls tell untruths.

But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon discovered to be "continually on the lips of the untaught" is not on the lips of those who "know better" at all.

As to dishonesty, too, I should be sorry to say that customers cheat as much as shopkeepers, but I do think that many people who ought to "know better" seem to forget that their honour as well as their interest is concerned in every bargain.
The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on these points of moral conduct than those below them?
If Eleanor and her parents are "old-fashioned" (and the boys think us quite behind the times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour are not so well taught now as they used to be.