had ridden on horseback, or driven a gig, which did very well for him and his wife.  But the governess thought Georgie ought to learn to ride and drive, and gigs were so much out of fashion.  So the pony cart and pony were purchased for her, and in this she went into the distant market town twice or more weekly.  Sometimes it was for shopping, sometimes to fetch household goods, sometimes to see friends; any excuse answered very well.  The governess said, and really believed, that it was better for Georgie to be away from the farm as much as possible, to see town people (if only a country town), and to learn their ways.

The many cheap illustrated papers giving the last details of fashionable costumes were, of course, brought home to be carefully read in the evenings.  These publications have a large circulation now in farmhouses.  Naturally Georgie soon began to talk about, and take an interest—­as girls will do—­in the young gentlemen of the town, and who was and who was not eligible.  As for the loud-voiced young farmers, with their slouching walk, their ill-fitting clothes, and stupid talk about cows and wheat, they were intolerable.  A banker’s clerk at least—­nothing could be thought of under a clerk in the local banks; of course, his salary was not high, but then his ‘position.’  The retail grocers and bakers and such people were quite beneath one’s notice—­low, common persons.  The ‘professional tradesmen’ (whatever that may be) were decidedly better, and could be tolerated.  The solicitors, bank managers, one or two brewers (wholesale—­nothing retail), large corn factors or coal merchants, who kept a carriage of some kind—­these formed the select society next under, and, as it were, surrounding the clergy and gentry.  Georgie at twelve years old looked at least as high as one of these; a farmhouse was to be avoided above all things.

As she grew older her mind was full of the local assembly ball.  The ball had been held for forty years or more, and had all that time been in the hands of the exclusive upper circles of the market town.  They only asked their own families, relations (not the poor ones), and visitors.  When Georgie was invited to this ball it was indeed a triumph.  Her poor mother cried with pleasure over her ball dress.  Poor woman, she was a good, a too good, mother, but she had never been to a ball.  There were, of course, parties, picnics, and so on, to which Georgie, having entered the charmed circle, was now asked; and thus her mind from the beginning centred in the town.  The sheep-fold, the cattle-pen, the cheese-tub, these were thrust aside.  They did not interest her, she barely understood the meaning when her father took the first prize at an important cattle show.  What So-and-so would wear at the flower show, where all the select would come, much more nearly concerned her.