It was here that Mrs.Yorke made her mistake: she thought she understood society because she had studied two exceptional phases of it.

There is nobody more short-sighted than the Bohemian, who imagines he is a citizen of the world; his round of life may have no fence in the shape of convention, yet it is often, very limited, and it is outside every other.
Mrs.Yorke judged of all men by her knowledge of her late husband and of Carew, and of women by herself.

If it had not been for the artificialities of society, she might have been right; but they are powerful, and she knew little about them.

In some matters she was exceedingly sagacious.

She did not entertain the alarm which would have been felt by some mothers with respect to her son's morals, probably exposed to some danger by his mode of life; perhaps she had not their scruples; and yet it is strange to see how light those weigh, even with our severest matrons, when any question of "position" is in the other scale: they will not only permit their sons to herd with _roues_, provided they are persons of distinction, but even accept them for their sons-in-law.