The first of these was no great matter, perhaps; Betty herself was sometimes burdened with a sense of possession, but family was indispensable.
In theory, at least, she was a thoroughgoing little aristocrat.

A gentleman was always a gentleman.

There were exceptions, like Tom, to be sure, but even Tom could have reached up and seized the title had he coveted it.

She rarely forgot that she was the mistress of Belle Plain and a Malroy.

Just wherein a Malroy differed from the rest of the sons of men she had never paused to consider, it sufficed that there was a hazy Malroy genealogy that went back to tidewater Virginia, and then if one were not meanly curious, and would skip a generation or two that could not be accounted for in ways any Malroy would accept, one might triumphantly follow the family to a red-roofed Sussex manor house.
Altogether, it was a highly satisfactory genealogy and it had Betty's entire faith.