'My mother never would go out to service - she - wouldn't - go,' said a
servant to her mistress, one day talking confidentially.
'Then what did she do?' asked the mistress, knowing they were very poor
people.
'Oh, she stopped at home.'
'But how did she live?'
'Oh, her father had to keep her. If she wouldn't go out, of course he had
to somehow.'
This mother would not let her daughter go to one place because there was
a draw-well on the premises; and her father objected to her going to
another because the way to the house lay down a long and lonely lane. The
girl herself, however, had sense enough to keep in a situation; but it
was distinctly against the feeling at her home; yet they were almost the
poorest family in the place. They were very respectable, and thought well
of in every way, belonging to the best class of cottagers.
Unprofitable sentiments! injurious sentiments - self-destroying; but I
always maintain that sentiment is stronger than fact, and even than
self-interest. I see clearly how foolish these feelings are, and how they
operate to the disadvantage of those whom they influence. Yet I confess
that were I in the same position I should be just as foolish. If I lived
in a cottage of three rooms, and earned my bread by dint of arm and hand
under the sun of summer and the frost of winter; if I lived on hard fare,
and, most powerful of all, if I had no hope for the future, no
improvement to look forward to, I should feel just the same.
