more of the real social
difficulties of this crowded country than ever I did before. Bringing
my own talents and acquirements into the market, and finding myself
elbowed out by competition, I think of those who have to do the real
hard necessary work of the world with more sympathy and more respect.
Not that I ever despised them--you must not imagine me to be so
hard-hearted as that; but my feeling for them is deepened and
heightened wonderfully of late. Now they are apt to say that PARVENUS
are of all men the most exacting and the most purse-proud; and that a
mistress who has been a servant is harsher to her female dependants
than one who has been accustomed to keep domestics all her life. It is
difficult for me to conceive this; but there must be truth in it, or it
would not be a proverb in all languages. You will be an exception,
Francis. You will have my uncle's real kindness without his crotchets
and his dictatorial manner. You must not be offended if I call you a
parvenu in spite of your birth. You have come suddenly into wealth that
you were not brought up to expect."
"If I do not recollect my past life, I will certainly remember your
present advice whenever I am tempted to think too much of myself and
too little of others."
"Everything is to lead to the perfecting of your character, you see,"
said Jane.
"I cannot bear even improvement at the expense of any one's suffering
but my own," said Francis.
"I have been thinking so much about that sermon I heard at your church.
I do not know that the preacher brought out the particular point; but
we are made such dependent beings, not only on God, but on each other,
that we do indirectly profit by what we do not purchase by our own
effort or pains. We would not choose to have it so; but when Providence
brings on ourselves or others sorrows we grieve for, we are right to
draw from them all the good we can. It is something if my uncle's
rather unjust will has given you property with a sobered sense of its
privileges and a strong sense of its duties--something to set against
Elsie's sufferings and mine. And, besides, the loss of it has done me
one great benefit."
"Tell me what," said Francis, eagerly.
"It is quite possible, though I cannot tell how probable, that I might
have married a man to whom I am not well suited in any respect, and who
was still less adapted to make me happy if I had not been disinherited.
I am thus frank with you, cousin Francis, for I
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