I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--" She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place.
"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller's apprentice could have done it," said Wharton, shaking his head.

"It's maddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!" "Why do you harp on that ?" said Marcella, quickly.

She had been taking him over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and how much she liked him.
"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports before breakfast," said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries in particular.

Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resource these fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders.' I wonder how long they are going to let me rule over them!" "I suppose brain-power and education count for something still ?" said Marcella, half scornfully.
"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so," said Wharton with emphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-power I happen to possess, which is the point.

The processes by which a Birmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to 'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are, of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances in Responsions.
Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so.