“You forget,” said her fellow clerk, “that money does not always fall to the wise or the refined.”
“But a person like that, coarse, unfeeling, and insolent—what right has she to money, while I have nothing?”
“Ah! there is the old story, restless rebellion against things as they are and must be. The law gives her a fortune which some one else has earned—it is the chance of her birth; but nature withheld from her many things far more precious than wealth, which she has lavished on—on others, perhaps.”
Eva blushed, and a smile quivered over her lips. This half-suppressed compliment soothed her wounded pride a little, but she soon broke into impatience again.
“Is there no way in which a poor girl can support herself without meeting these bitter insults?” she exclaimed.
The man shook his head.
“Do intelligence, refinement, noble aspirations, go for nothing when joined with honest labor?”
“Yes, child, as they enchance the value of that labor.”
“And labor is slavery,” murmured the girl, looking toward the broad window, against which the sunshine was breaking in bright waves of silver. “That girl is her own mistress—can go where she will—say what she pleases—wound others if she likes, without rebuke or compunction.”
“Would you call that a privilege?” questioned the man, who listened with a grave smile.