se she thought that she would have done so if she
had been as ignorant and unbred as they. Her error was in arguing their
attitude from her own temperament, and endowing them, for the purposes of
argument, with her perspective. They had not the means, intellectual or
moral, of feeling as she fancied. If they had remained at home on the
farm where they were born, Christine would have grown up that embodiment
of impassioned suspicion which we find oftenest in the narrowest spheres,
and Mela would always have been a good-natured simpleton; but they would
never have doubted their equality with the wisest and the finest. As it
was, they had not learned enough at school to doubt it, and the splendor
of their father's success in making money had blinded them forever to any
possible difference against them. They had no question of themselves in
the social abeyance to which they had been left in New York. They had
been surprised, mystified; it was not what they had expected; there must
be some mistake.

They were the victims of an accident, which would be repaired as soon as
the fact of their father's wealth had got around. They had been steadfast
in their faith, through all their disappointment, that they were not only
better than most people by virtue of his money, but as good as any; and
they took Margaret's visit, so far as they, investigated its motive, for
a sign that at last it was beginning to get around; of course, a thing
could not get around in New York so quick as it could in a small place.
They were confirmed in their belief by the sensation of Mrs. Mandel when
she returned to duty that afternoon, and they consulted her about going
to Mrs. Horn's musicale. If she had felt any doubt at the name for there
were Horns and Horns--the address on the card put the matter beyond
question; and she tried to make her charges understand what a precious
chance had befallen them. She did not succeed; they had not the premises,
the experience, for a sufficient impression; and she undid her work in
part by the effort to explain that Mrs. Horn's standing was independent
of money; that though she was positively rich, she was comparatively
poor. Christine inferred that Miss Vance had called because she wished to
be the first to get in with them since it had begun to get around. This
view commended itself to Mela, too, but without warping her from her
opinion that Miss Vance was all the same too sweet for anything. She had
not so vivid a