“I should think,” said she, “that the company would have something to say about your takin’ up your time talkin’ to people on the road.  I’ve heard that sometimes they get out, and spend hours talkin’ and smokin’ with you.  I guess that’s against the rules.”

“It is all right between the company and me,” replied the captain.  “You know I am a stockholder in a small way.”

“You are!” exclaimed Miss Port.  “Well, I’ve got somethin’ by comin’ here, anyway.”  Stowing away this bit of information in regard to the captain’s resources in her mind for future consideration, she continued:  “I don’t think much of that niece of your’n.  Has she never lived anywhere where the people had good manners?”

Olive, who had gone to her room in order to be out of the way of this queer visitor, now sat by an upper window, and it was impossible that she should fail to hear this remark, made by Miss Port in her most querulous tones.  Olive immediately left the window, and sat down on the other side of the room.

“Good manners!” she ejaculated, and fell to thinking.  Her present situation had suddenly presented itself to her in a very different light from that in which she had previously regarded it.  She was living in a very plain house in a very plain way, with a very plain uncle who kept a tollhouse; but she liked him; and, until this moment, she had liked the life.  But now she asked herself if it were possible for her longer to endure it if she were to be condemned to intercourse with people like that thing down in the garden.  If her uncle’s other friends in Glenford were of that grade she could not stay here.  She smiled in spite of her irritation as she thought of the woman’s words—­“Anywhere where the people had good manners.”

Good manners, indeed!  She remembered the titled young officers in Germany with whom she had talked and danced when she was but seventeen years old, and who used to send her flowers.  She remembered the people of rank in the army and navy and in the state who used to invite her mother and herself to their houses.  She remembered the royal prince who had wished to be presented to her, and whose acquaintance she had declined because she did not like what she had heard of him.  She remembered the good friends of her father in Europe and America, ladies and gentlemen of the army and navy.  She remembered the society in which she had mingled when living with her Boston aunt during the past winter.  Then she thought of Miss Port’s question.  Good manners, indeed!

“Well,” said the perturbed Maria, after having been informed by the captain that his niece was accustomed to move in the best circles, “I don’t want to go into the house again, for if I was to meet her, I’m sure I couldn’t keep my temper.  But I’ll say this to you, Captain Asher, that I pity the woman that’s her guardeen.  And now, if you’ll help my boy turn round so he won’t upset the carriage, I’ll be goin’.  But before I go I’ll just say this, that if you’d been in the habit of takin’ advantage of the chances that come to you, I believe that you’d be a good deal better off than you are now, even if you do own shares in the turnpike company.”