Winifred intervened, "don't you
see how badly that might work nowadays? now that the good
families have so little money, and all the fortunes are
in the hands of stockjobbing people--and so on? It would
be THEIR sons who would buy all the commissions--and
I'm sure Balder wouldn't get on at all with that lot."
Lady Plowden answered with decision and great promptness.
"You see so little of the world, Winnie dear,
that you don't get very clear ideas of its movements.
The people who make fortunes in England are every whit
as important to its welfare as those who inherit names,
and individually I'm sure they are often much more deserving.
Every generation sniffs at its nouveaux riches, but by
the next they have become merged in the aristocracy.
It isn't a new thing in England at all. It has always been
that way. Two-thirds of the peerage have their start
from a wealthy merchant, or some other person who made
a fortune. They are really the back-bone of England.
You should keep that always in mind."
"Of course--I see what you mean"--Winnie replied,
her dark cheek flushing faintly under the tacit reproof.
She had passed her twenty-fifth birthday, but her voice had
in it the docile self-repression of a school-girl. She spoke
with diffident slowness, her gaze fastened upon her plate.
"Of course--my grandfather was a lawyer--and your point
is that merchants--and others who make fortunes--would
be the same.
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