‘It is very ill, sir,’ said Tom. ‘It is very bad and mean, and wrong and cruel. Respect! I believe young people are quick enough to observe and imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no one else respects, and everybody slights? And very partial they must grow—oh, very partial!—to their studies, when they see to what a pass proficiency in those same tasks has brought their governess! Respect! Put anything the most deserving of respect before your daughters in the light in which you place her, and you will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!’
‘You speak with extreme impertinence, young man,’ observed the gentleman.
‘I speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt for such a course of treatment, and for all who practice it,’ said Tom. ‘Why, how can you, as an honest gentleman, profess displeasure or surprise at your daughter telling my sister she is something beggarly and humble, when you are for ever telling her the same thing yourself in fifty plain, outspeaking ways, though not in words; and when your very porter and footman make the same delicate announcement to all comers? As to your suspicion and distrust of her; even of her word; if she is not above their reach, you have no right to employ her.’
‘No right!’ cried the brass-and-copper founder.
‘Distinctly not,’ Tom answered. ‘If you imagine that the payment of an annual sum of money gives it to you, you immensely exaggerate its power and value. Your money is the least part of your bargain in such a case. You may be punctual in that to half a second on the clock, and yet be Bankrupt. I have nothing more to say,’ said Tom, much flushed and flustered, now that it was over, ‘except to crave permission to stand in your garden until my sister is ready.’
Not waiting to obtain it, Tom walked out.
Before he had well begun to cool, his sister joined him. She was crying; and Tom could not bear that any one about the house should see her doing that.
‘They will think you are sorry to go,’ said Tom. ‘You are not sorry to go?’
‘No, Tom, no. I have been anxious to go for a very long time.’
‘Very well, then! Don’t cry!’ said Tom.