Though she was clever, and though in spite of her
ignorance she at once knew an intelligent man from a fool, she did not
know the difference between a gentleman and a--"cad." It was in her
estimation something against Mr. Emilius that he was a clergyman,
something against him that he had nothing but what he earned, something
against him that he was supposed to be a renegade Jew, and that nobody
knew whence he came nor who he was. These deficiencies or drawbacks Lizzie
recognised. But it was nothing against him in her judgment that he was a
greasy, fawning, pawing, creeping, black-browed rascal, who could not look
her full in the face, and whose every word sounded like a lie. There was a
twang in his voice which ought to have told her that he was utterly
untrustworthy. There was an oily pretence at earnestness in his manner
which ought to have told that he was not fit to associate with gentlemen.
There was a foulness of demeanour about him which ought to have given to
her, as a woman at any rate brought up among ladies, an abhorrence of his
society. But all this Lizzie did not feel. She ridiculed to Mrs. Carbuncle
the idea of the preacher's courtship.
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