The French governess (_Mlle.

Panache_) and the satire on romantic young-ladyism (_Angelina_) are excellent examples of this.

As for the pure child's stories, generation after generation of competent criticism, childish and adult, has voted them by acclamation into almost the highest place possible: and the gain-sayers have for the most part been idle paradoxers, ill-conditioned snarlers at things clean and sweet, or fools pure and simple.
[16] The peculiar pedantic ignorance which critics sometimes show has objected to this rendering of Marmontel's _Contes Moraux_, urging that it should read "tales _of manners_." It might be enough to remark that the Edgeworths, father and daughter, were probably a good deal better acquainted both with French and English than these cavillers.

But there is a rebutting argument which is less _ad hominem_.

"Tales of Manners" leaves out at least as much on one side as "Moral Tales" does on the other: and the actual meaning is quite clear to those who know that of the Latin _mores_ and the French _moeurs_.