Touchett
serenely said. "They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect
ones in Florence."
"I don't see what you want with five," Henrietta couldn't help
observing. "I don't think I should like to see five persons
surrounding me in that menial position."
"I like them in that position better than in some others,"
proclaimed Mrs. Touchett with much meaning.
"Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?" her husband
asked.
"I don't think I should: you wouldn't at all have the tenue."
"The companions of freemen- I like that, Miss Stackpole," said
Ralph. "It's a beautiful description."
"When I said freemen I didn't mean you, sir!"
And this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment. Miss
Stackpole was baffled; she evidently thought there was something
treasonable in Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she
privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism. It was
perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she
suffered some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to
Isabel: "My dear friend, I wonder if you're growing faithless."
"Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?"
"No, that would be a great pain; but it's not that.
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