quented the little
branch Ebenezer, on Rosebury Green; and it was only by her charities
and kindness at Christmas-time, that the Rev. Dr. Potter, the rector
at Rosebury, knew her. The old clergy, you see, live with the county
families. Good little Madame de Florac was pitied and patronised by the
Doctor, treated with no little superciliousness by Mrs. Potter, and
the young ladies, who only kept the first society. Even when her rich
brother died, and she got her share of all that money Mrs. Potter said
poor Madame de Florac did well in not trying to move out of her natural
sphere (Mrs. P. was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in London, and had
herself been governess in a noble family, out of which she married Mr.
P., who was private tutor). Madame de Florac did well, she said, not to
endeavour to leave her natural sphere, and that The County never would
receive her. Tom Potter, the rector's son, with whom I had the good
fortune to be a fellow-student at Saint Boniface College, Oxbridge--a
rattling, forward, and it must be owned, vulgar youth--asked me whether
Florac was not a billiard-marker by profession? and was even so kind
as to caution his sisters not to speak of billiards before the lady of
Rosebury. Tom was surprised to learn that Monsieur Paul de Florac was a
gentleman of lineage incomparably better than that of any, except two
or three families in England (including your own, my dear and respected
reader, of course, if you hold to your pedigree). But the truth is,
heraldically speaking, that union with the Higgs of Manchester was the
first misalliance which the Florac family had made for long long years.
Not that I would wish for a moment to insinuate that any nobleman
is equal to an English nobleman; nay, that an English snob, with a
coat-of-arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of Edmonton, or a pedigree
purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right to look down upon any of
your paltry foreign nobility.

One day the carriage-and-four came in state from Newcome Park, with the
well-known chaste liveries of the Newcomes, and drove up Rosebury Green,
towards the parsonage gate, when Mrs. and the Miss Potters happened to
be standing, cheapening fish from a donkey-man, with whom they were in
the habit of dealing. The ladies were in their pokiest old head-gear
and most dingy gowns, when they perceived the carriage approaching; and
considering, of course, that the visit of the Park people was intended
for them, dash