But more generally the "true-blue" old families are simple and urbane in their manners; and their pretensions are, as Miss Edgeworth says, presented rather _intaglio_ than in cameo.

Of course, they most thoroughly believe in themselves, but in a bland and genial way.

"_Noblesse oblige_" is with them a secret spring of gentle address and social suavity.

They prefer their own set and their own ways, and are comfortably sure that what they do not know is not worth knowing, and what they have not been in the habit of doing is not worth doing; but still they are indulgent of the existence of human nature outside of their own circle.
The Seymours and the Fergusons belonged to this sort of people; and, of course, Mr.John Seymour's marriage afforded them opportunity for some wholesome moral discipline.

The Ferguson girls were frank, social, magnanimous young women; of that class, to whom the saying or doing of a rude or unhandsome thing by any human being was an utter impossibility, and whose cheeks would flush at the mere idea of asserting personal superiority over any one.