Heather and Snow

'Not in the way you mean; not that his son should go and see him every other day! A dog may be a man's good friend, and so was sergeant Barclay your father's--very good friend that way, I don't doubt!'

'You said a moment ago he was but a private, and now you call him sergeant Barclay!'

'Well, where's the difference?'

'To be made sergeant shows that he was not a common man. If he had been, he would not have been set over others!'

'Of course he was then, and is now, a very respectable man. If he were not I should never have let you go and see him at all. But you must learn to behave like the gentleman you are, and that you never will while you frequent the company of your inferiors. Your manners are already almost ruined--fit for no place but a farmhouse! There you are, standing on the side of your foot again!--Old Barclay, I dare say, tells you no end of stories about your mother!'

'He always asks after you, mother, and then never mentions you more.'

She knew perfectly t