Fisher's own, so far removed from what she understood and
liked, and infect her with her undesirable phrases, was most
disturbing. Never in her life before had such a sentence come into
Mrs. Fisher's head. Never in her life before had she though of her
maids, or of anybody else, as dusty old things. Her maids were not
dusty old things; they were most respectable, neat women, who were
allowed the use of the bathroom every Saturday night. Elderly,
certainly, but then so was she, so was her house, so was her furniture,
so were her goldfish. They were all elderly, as they should be,
together. But there was a great difference between being elderly and
being a dusty old thing.
How true it was what Ruskin said, that evil communications
corrupt good manners. But did Ruskin say it? On second thoughts she
was not sure, but it was just the sort of thing he would have said if
he had said it, and in any case it was true. Merely hearing Mrs.
Wilkins's evil communications at meals--she did not listen, she avoided
listening, yet it was evident she had heard--those communications which,
in that they so often were at once vulgar, indelicate and profane, and
always, she was sorry to say, laughed at by Lady Caroline, must be
classed as evil, was spoiling her own mental manners.
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