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'There is one level of
conversation, fit for the meanest capacity; and whoever ventures to
transgress it, is instantly called blue, or a horrid bore, &c., &c.'
'Nonsense, Lizzie,' said Anne, laughing; 'I am sure I have heard
plenty of clever people talk, about sensible things too, and never
did I hear them called bores, or blue, or any of your awful et
ceteras either.'
'Because people did not dare to do so,' said Elizabeth, 'but they
thought it all the same.'
'What do you mean by people?' said Anne.
'The dull, respectable, common-place gentry, who make up the mass of
mankind,' said Elizabeth.
'Do they ?' said Anne.
'Do not they?' said Elizabeth.
'I do not know what the mass of mankind may be at Abbeychurch,' said
Anne, 'but I am sure the people whom we see oftenest at home, are
such as I think it a privilege to know.' And she began to enumerate
these friends.
'Oh! Anne,' interrupted Elizabeth, 'do not, for pity's sake, make me
discontented; here am I in Abbeychurch, and must make the best of it.
I must be as polite and hypocritical as I can make myself.


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