y do not positively
reach, are so frequently near to reaching the normal poor, are, no
doubt, the severest of the trials to which humanity is subjected.
They threaten life,--or, if not life, then liberty,--reducing the
abject one to a choice between captivity and starvation. By hook or
crook, the poor gentleman or poor lady,--let the one or the other
be ever so poor,--does not often come to the last extremity of the
workhouse. There are such cases, but they are exceptional. Mrs
Crawley, through all her sufferings, had never yet found her cupboard
to be absolutely bare, or the bread-pan to be actually empty. But
there are pangs to which, at the time, starvation itself would seem
to be preferable. The angry eyes of unpaid tradesman, savage with
anger which one knows to be justifiable; the taunt of the poor
servant who wants her wages; the gradual relinquishment of habits
which the soft nurture of earlier, kinder years had made second
nature; the wan cheeks of the wife whose malady demands wine; the
rags of the husband whose outward occupations demand decency;
the neglected children, who are learning not be the children of
gentlefolk; and, worse than all, the alms and doles of half-generous
friends, the waning pride, the pride that will not wane, the growing
doubt whether it be not better to bow the head, and acknowledge to
all the world that nothing of the pride of station is left,--that the
hand is open to receive and ready to touch the cap, that the fall
from the upper to the lower level has been accomplished,--these are
the pangs of poverty which drive the Crawleys of the world to the
frequent entertaining of that idea of the bare bodkin. It was settled
that Grace should go to Allington;--but how about her clothes? And
then, whence was to come the price of her journey?

"I don't think they'll mind about my being shabby at Allington. They
live very quietly there."

"But you say that Miss Dale is so very nice in all her ways."

"Lily is very nice, mamma; but I shan't mind her so much as her
mother, because she knows it all. I have told her everything."

"But you have given me all your money, dearest."

"Miss Prettyman told me I was to come to her," said Grace, who had
already taken some from the schoolmistress, which at once had gone
into her mother's pocket, and into household purposes. "She said I
should be sure to go to Allington, and that of course I should go to
her, as I must pass through Silverbridge."

"I