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 consciousness of her father's money as Christine had; but
she reposed perhaps all the more confidently upon its power. She was far
from thinking meanly of any one who thought highly of her for it; that
seemed so natural a result as to be amiable, even admirable; she was
willing that any such person should get all the good there was in such an
attitude toward her.
They discussed the matter that night at dinner before their father and
mother, who mostly sat silent at their meals; the father frowning
absently over his plate, with his head close to it, and making play into
his mouth with the back of his knife (he had got so far toward the use of
his fork as to despise those who still ate from the edge of their
knives), and the mother partly missing hers at times in the nervous
tremor that shook her face from side to side.
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