easily said than done. We have not, God be thanked for it, ever been quite so badly off as that; but I have stood near enough to the dreadful gulf to look down, and to sound its depth and its darkness. I am very thankful, deeply thankful, for this offer, which I should gladly accept, only what is to become of you?"
"Oh! never mind me. It's the fashion now, I see, for every body to think of you, and nobody to think of me. I'm not worth caring for, now those who cared for me are gone. Oh! pray, if you like to be a domestic slave yourself, let me be no hindrance."
"A domestic slave! why should I be a domestic slave? I see no slavery in the case."
"I call it slavery, whatever you may do, to have nothing to do all day but play toad-eater and flatterer to a good-for-nothing old woman; to bear all her ill-humors, and be the butt for all her caprices. That's what humble friends are expected to do, I believe; what else are they hired for?"
"I should neither toady nor flatter, I hope," said Lettice; "and as for bearing people's ill-humors, and being now and then the sport of their caprices, why that, as you say, is very disagreeable, yet, perhaps, it is what we must rather expect. But Mrs. Melwyn, I have always heard, is the gentlest of human beings. And if she is like Catherine, she must be free from caprice, and nobody could help quite loving her."
"Stuff! – love! love! A humble friend love her unhumble friend; for I suppose one must not venture to call one's mistress a tyrant. Oh, no, a friend! a dear friend!" in a taunting, ironical voice.
"Whomever it might be my fate to live with, I should try to love; for I believe if one tries to love people, one soon finds something lovable about them, and Mrs. Melwyn, I feel sure, I should soon love very much."
"So like you! ready to love any thing and every thing. I verily believe if there was nothing else to love but the little chimney-sweeper boy, you'd fall to loving him, rather than love nobody."
"I am sure that's true enough," said Lettice, laughing; "I have more than once felt very much inclined to love the little boy who carries the soot-bag for the man who sweeps these chimneys – such a saucy-looking, little sooty rogue."
"As if a person's love could be worth having," continued the sister, "who is so ready to love any body."
"No, that I deny. Some few people I do find it hard to love."
"Me for one."
"Oh, Myra!"
"Well, I beg your pardon. You're very kind to me. But I'll tell you who it will be impossible for you to love – if such a thing can be: that's that testy, cross, old general."
"I don't suppose I shall have much to do with the old general, if I go."
"If you go. Oh, you're sure to go. You're so sanguine; every new prospect is so promising. But pardon me, you seem quite to have forgotten that reading to the old general, and playing backgammon with him, are among your specified employments."
"Well, I don't see much harm in it if they are. A man can't be very cross with one when one's reading to him – and as for the backgammon, I mean to lose every game, if that will please him."
"Oh, a man can't be cross with a reader? I wish you knew as much of the world as I do, and had heard people read. Why, nothing on earth puts one in such a fidget. I'm sure I've been put into such a worry by people's way of reading, that I could have pinched them. Really, Lettice, your simplicity would shame a child of five years old."
"Well, I shall do my best, and besides I shall take care to set my chair so far off that I can't get pinched, at least; and as for a poor, ailing, suffering old man being a little impatient and cross, why one can't expect to get fifty pounds a year for just doing nothing. – I do suppose it is expected that I should bear a few of these things in place of Mrs. Melwyn; and I don't see why I should not."
"Oh, dear! Well, my love, you're quite made for the place, I see; you always had something of the spaniel in you, or the walnut-tree, or any of those things which are the better for being ill-used. It was quite a proverb with our poor mother, 'a worm will turn, but not Lettice.'"
Lettice felt very much inclined to turn now. But the mention of her mother – that mother whose mismanagement and foolish indulgence had contributed so much to poor Myra's faults – faults for which she now paid so heavy a penalty – silenced the generous girl, and she made no answer.
No answer, let it proceed from never so good a motive, makes cross people often more cross; though perhaps upon the whole it is the best plan.
So Myra in a still more querulous voice went on:
"This room will be rather dismal all by one's self, and I don't know how I'm to go about, up and down, fetch and carry, and work as you are able to do… I was never used to it. It comes very hard upon me." And she began to cry.
"Poor Myra! dear Myra! don't cry: I never intended to leave you. Though I talked as if I did, it was only in the way of argument, because I thought more might be said for the kind of life than you thought; and I felt sure if people were tolerably kind and candid, I could get along very well and make myself quite comfortable. Dear me! after such hardships as we have gone through, a little would do that. But do you think, poor dear girl, I could have a moment's peace, and know you were here alone? No, no."
And so when she went in the evening to carry her answer to Mrs. Danvers, who had conveyed to her Catherine's proposal, Lettice said, "that she should have liked exceedingly to accept Catherine's offer, and was sure she should have been very happy herself, and would have done every thing in her power to make Mrs. Melwyn happy, but that it was impossible to leave her sister."
"If that is your only difficulty, my dear, don't make yourself uneasy about that. I have found a place for your sister which I think she will like very well. It is with Mrs. Fisher, the great milliner in Dover-street, where she will be taken care of, and may be very comfortable. Mrs. Fisher is a most excellent person, and very anxious, not only about the health and comfort of those she employs, but about their good behavior and their security from evil temptation. Such a beautiful girl as your sister is, lives in perpetual danger, exposed as she is without protection in this great town."
"But Myra has such an abhorrence of servitude, as she calls it – such an independent high spirit – I fear she will never like it."
"It will be very good for her, whether she likes it or not. Indeed, my dear, to speak sincerely, the placing your sister out of danger in the house of Mrs. Fisher ought to be a decisive reason with you for accepting Catherine's proposal – even did you dislike it much more than you seem to do."
"Oh! to tell the truth, I should like the plan very much indeed – much more than I have wished to say, on account of Myra: but she never, never will submit to be ruled, I fear, and make herself happy where, of course, she must obey orders and follow regulations, whether she likes them or not. Unfortunately, poor dear, she has been so little accustomed to be contradicted."
"Well, then, it is high time she should begin; for contradicted, sooner or later, we all of us are certain to be. Seriously, again, my dear, good Lettice – I must call you Lettice – your innocence of heart prevents you from knowing what snares surround a beautiful young woman like your sister. I like you best, I own; but I have thought much more of her fate than yours, upon that account. Such a situation as is offered to you she evidently is quite unfit to fill: but I went – the very day Catherine and I came to your lodgings and saw you both – to my good friend Mrs. Fisher, and, with great difficulty, have persuaded her at last to take your sister. She disliked the idea very much; but she's an excellent woman: and when I represented to her the peculiar circumstances
