"
"It is the peasantry, the dear, natural, picturesque peasantry that I
most want to know."
"I am astonished to hear you say so, Lady Mabel. The ignorant, filthy,
superstitious creatures!" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, with an air of
infinite disgust. "Their _fidalgos_, as they call their gentry, are
bad enough; but as for the common people, any familiarity with them,
sufficient to enable you to know them, would be too disgusting. They
may be picturesque; so let us confine them to their place in the
picture. There alone it is that they do not bring their savor of
garlic with them," and she here buried her pretty little turned-up
nose in a bunch of Lady Mabel's most fragrant flowers.
"Give me those flowers, Mrs. Shortridge; you handle them so rudely,
any one might see that you are no botanist. I had just laid them aside
to be pressed. And as for the poor Portuguese, I mean to know them as
well and despise them as little as I can, and even hope to learn
something through them, if not from them. Colonel L'Isle, I have
mastered already all the ordinary phrases of Portuguese salutation and
compliment, which you know are much more various and cumbrous than in
our direct, blunt English.
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