Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

"His illness was very lingering and very painful – and several times a surgical operation was required. My mother could not bear – could any of us? – to have it done by the poor blundering operator of that remote village. To have a surgeon from Nottingham was very expensive; and then the medicines; and the necessary food and attendance. The kindest and most provident father can not save much out of one hundred and ten pounds a year, and what was saved was soon all gone."

"Well, well," repeated Catherine, her eyes fixed with intense interest upon the speaker.

"His deathbed was a painful scene," Lettice went on, her face displaying her emotion, while she with great effort restrained her tears: "he trusted in God; but there was a fearful prospect before us, and he could not help trembling for his children. Dear, dear father! he reproached himself for his want of faith, and would try to strengthen us, 'but the flesh,' he said, 'was weak.' He could not look forward without anguish. It was a fearful struggle to be composed and confiding – he could not help being anxious. It was for us, you know, not for himself."

"Frightful!" cried Catherine, indignantly; "frightful! that a man of education, a scholar, a gentleman, a man of so much activity in doing good, and so much power in preaching it, should be brought to this. One hundred and ten pounds a year, was that all? How could you exist?"

"We had the house and the garden besides, you know, and my mother was such an excellent manager; and my father! No religious of the severest order was ever more self-denying, and there was only me. My aunt Price, you know, took Myra – Myra had been delicate from a child, and was so beautiful, and she was never made to rough it, my mother and my aunt said. Now I seemed made expressly for the purpose," she added, smiling with perfect simplicity.

"And his illness, so long! and so expensive!" exclaimed Catherine, with a sort of cry.

"Yes, it was – and to see the pains he took that it should not be expensive. He would be quite annoyed if my mother got any thing nicer than usual for his dinner. She used to be obliged to make a mystery of it; and we were forced almost to go down upon our knees to get him to have the surgeon from Nottingham. Nothing but the idea that his life would be more secure in such hands could have persuaded him into it. He knew how important that was to us. As for the pain which the bungling old doctor hard by would have given him, he would have borne that rather than have spent money. Oh, Catherine! there have been times upon times when I have envied the poor. They have hospitals to go to; they are not ashamed to ask for a little wine from those who have it; they can beg when they are in want of a morsel of bread. It is natural. It is right – they feel it to be right. But oh! for those, as they call it, better born, and educated to habits of thought like those of my poor father!.. Want is, indeed, like an armed man, when he comes into their dwellings."

"Too true, my dear young lady," said Mrs. Danvers, whose eyes were by this time moist; "but go on, if it does not pain you too much, your story is excessively interesting. There is yet a wide step between where your relation leaves us, and where I found you."

"We closed his eyes at last in deep sorrow. Excellent man, he deserved a better lot! So, at least, it seems to me – but who knows? Nay, he would have reproved me for saying so. He used to say of himself, so cheerfully, 'It's a rough road, but it leads to a good place.' Why could he not feel this for his wife and children? He found that so very difficult!"

"He was an excellent and a delightful man," said Catherine. "Well?"…

"Well, my dear, when he had closed his eyes, there was his funeral. We could not have a parish funeral. The veriest pauper has a piety toward the dead which revolts at that. We did it as simply as we possibly could, consistently with common decency; but they charge so enormously for such things: and my poor mother would not contest it. When I remonstrated a little, and said I thought it was right to prevent others being treated in the same way, who could no better afford it than we could, I shall never forget my mother's face: 'I dare say – yes, you are right, Lettice; quite right – but not this – not his. I can not debate that matter. Forgive me, dear girl; it is weak – but I can not.'

"This expense exhausted all that was left of our little money: only a few pounds remained when our furniture had been sold, and we were obliged to give up possession of that dear, dear, little parsonage, and we were without a roof to shelter us. You remember it, Catherine!"

"Remember it! to be sure I do. That sweet little place. The tiny house, all covered over with honey-suckles and jasmines. How sweet they did smell. And your flower-garden, Lettice, how you used to work in it. It was that which made you so hale and strong, aunt Montague said. She admired your industry so, you can't think. She used to say you were worth a whole bundle of fine ladies."

"Did she?" and Lettice smiled again. She was beginning to look cheerful, in spite of her dismal story. There was something so inveterately cheerful in that temper, that nothing could entirely subdue it. The warmth of her generous nature it was that kept the blood and spirits flowing.

"It was a sad day when we parted from it. My poor mother! How she kept looking back – looking back – striving not to cry; and Myra was drowned in tears."

"And what did you do?"

"I am sure I don't know; I was so sorry for them both; I quite forget all the rest."

"But how came you to London?" asked Mrs. Danvers. "Every body, without other resource, seem to come to London. The worst place, especially for women, they can possibly come to. People are so completely lost in London. Nobody dies of want, nobody is utterly and entirely destitute of help or friends, except in London."

"A person we knew in the village, and to whom my father had been very kind, had a son who was employed in one of the great linen-warehouses, and he promised to endeavor to get us needle-work; and we flattered ourselves, with industry, we should, all three together, do pretty well. So we came to London, and took a small lodging, and furnished it with the remnant of our furniture. We had our clothes, which, though plain enough, were a sort of little property, you know. But when we came to learn the prices they actually paid for work, it was really frightful! Work fourteen hours a day apiece, and we could only gain between three and four shillings a week each – sometimes hardly that. There was our lodging to pay, three shillings a week, and six shillings left for firing and food for three people; this was in the weeks of plenty. Oh! it was frightful!"

"Horrible!" echoed Catherine.

"We could not bring ourselves down to it at once. We hoped and flattered ourselves that by-and-by we should get some work that would pay better; and when we wanted a little more food, or in very cold days a little more fire, we were tempted to sell or pawn one article after another. At last my mother fell sick, and then all went; she died, and she had a pauper's funeral," concluded Lettice, turning very pale.

They were all three silent. At last Mrs. Danvers began again.

"That was not the lodging I found you in?"

"No, madam, that was too expensive. We left it, and we only pay one-and-sixpence a week for this, the furniture being our own."

"The cab is at the door, Miss Melwyn," again interrupted Reynolds.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can't go, indeed, Mrs. Danvers, I can't go;" with a pleading look, "may I stay one day longer?"

"Most gladly would I keep you, my dearest love; but your father and mother… And they will have sent to meet you."

"And suppose they have, John must go back, but stay, stay, Sarah shall go and take all my boxes, and say I am coming to-morrow; that will do."

"And you travel alone by railway? Your mother will never like that."

"I am ashamed," cried Catherine, with energy, "to think of such mere conventional difficulties, when here I stand in the presence of real misery. Indeed, my dear Mrs. Danvers, my mother will be quite satisfied when she hears why I staid. I must be an insensible creature if I could go away without seeing more of dear Lettice."

Lettice looked up so pleased, so grateful, so happy.

"Well, my love, I think your mother will not be uneasy, as Sarah goes; and I just remember Mrs. Sands travels your way to-morrow, so she will take care of you; for taken care of you must be, my pretty Catherine, till you are a little less young, and somewhat less handsome."

And she patted the sweet, fall, rosy cheek.

Catherine was very pretty indeed, if you care to know that, and so it was settled.

And now, Lettice having enjoyed a happier hour than she had known for many a long day, began to recollect herself, and to think of poor Myra.

She rose from her chair, and taking up her bonnet and shawl, which Catherine had hung before the fire to dry, seemed preparing to depart.

Then both Catherine and Mrs. Danvers began to think of her little bill, which had not been settled yet. Catherine felt excessively awkward and uncomfortable at the idea of offering her old friend and companion money; but Mrs. Danvers was too well acquainted with real misery, had too much approbation for that spirit which is not above earning, but is above begging, to have any embarrassment in such a case.

"Catherine, my dear," she said, "you owe Miss Arnold some money. Had you not better settle it before she leaves?"

Both the girls blushed.

"Nay, my dears," said Mrs. Danvers, kindly; "why this? I am sure," coming up to them, and taking Lettice's hand, "I hold an honest hand here, which is not ashamed to labor, when it has been the will of God that it shall be by her own exertions that she obtains her bread, and part of the bread of another, if I mistake not. What you have nobly earned as nobly receive. Humiliation belongs to the idle and the dependent, not to one who maintains herself."

The eyes of Lettice glistened, and she could not help gently pressing the hand which held hers.

Such sentiments were congenial to her heart. She had never been able to comprehend the conventional distinctions between what is honorable or degrading, under the fetters of which so many lose the higher principles of independence – true honesty and true honor. To work for her living had never lessened her in her own eyes; and she had found, with a sort of astonishment, that it was to sink her in the eyes of others. To deny herself every thing in food, furniture, clothing, in order to escape debt, and add in her little way to the comforts of those she loved, had ever appeared to her noble and praiseworthy. She was as astonished, as many such a heart has been before her, with the course of this world's esteem, too often measured by what people spend upon themselves, rather than by what they spare. I can not get that story in the newspaper – the contempt expressed for the dinner of one mutton chop, potatoes, and a few greens – out of my head.

Catherine's confusion had, in a moment of weakness, extended to Lettice. She had felt ashamed to be paid as a workwoman by one once her friend, and in social rank her equal; but now she raised her head, with a noble frankness and spirit.

"I am very much obliged to you for recollecting it, madam, for in truth the money is very much wanted; and if – " turning to her old friend, "my dear Catherine can find me a little more work, I should be very greatly obliged to her."

Catherine again changed color. Work! she was longing to offer her money. She had twenty pounds in her pocket, a present from her godmother, to buy something pretty for her wedding. She was burning with desire to put it into Lettice's hand.

She stammered – she hesitated.

"Perhaps you have no more work just now," said Lettice. "Never mind, then; I am sure when there is an opportunity, you will remember what a pleasure it will be to me to work for you; and that a poor needlewoman is very much benefited by having private customers."

"My dear, dear Lettice!" and Catherine's arms were round her neck. She could not help shedding a few tears.

"But to return to business," said Mrs. Danvers, "for I see Miss Arnold is impatient to be gone. What is your charge, my dear? These slips are tucked and beautifully stitched and done."

"I should not get more than threepence, at most fourpence, at the shops for them. Should you think ninepence an unreasonable charge? I believe it is what you would pay if you had them done at the schools."