She could see by the way he talked that he was a conservative,
and this was the motto inscribed upon her own silken banner. She took
this unpopular line both by temperament and by reaction from her
sister's "extreme" views, the sight of the dreadful people that they
brought about her. In reality, Olive was distinguished and
discriminating, and Adeline was the dupe of confusions in which the
worse was apt to be mistaken for the better. She talked to Ransom about
the inferiority of republics, the distressing persons she had met abroad
in the legations of the United States, the bad manners of servants and
shopkeepers in that country, the hope she entertained that "the good old
families" would make a stand; but he never suspected that she cultivated
these topics (her treatment of them struck him as highly comical) for
the purpose of leading him to the altar, of beguiling the way. Least of
all could he suppose that she would be indifferent to his want of
income--a point in which he failed to do her justice; for, thinking the
fact that he had remained poor a proof of delicacy in that shopkeeping
age, it gave her much pleasure to reflect that, as Newton's little
property was settled on him (with safeguards which showed how
long-headed poor Mr.
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