“Oh, yes!” said Margaret. “You must not think we meant to advise; but papa has seen so many instances of distress, from servants not spared to their friends in illness, that he feels strongly on the subject.”
“And I really might have been as cruel as that woman!” said Meta. “Well, I hope Mrs. Bellairs may be better, and able to spare her daughter. I don’t know what will become of me without her.”
“I think it will have been a satisfaction in one way,” said Margaret.
“In what way?”
“Don’t you remember what you began by complaining of, that you could not be of use? Now, I fancy this would give you the pleasure of undergoing a little personal inconvenience for the good of another.”
Meta looked half puzzled, half thoughtful, and Margaret, who was a little uneasy at the style of counsel she found herself giving, changed the conversation.
It was a memorable one to little Miss Rivers, opening out to her, as did almost all her meetings with that family, a new scope for thought and for duty. The code to which she had been brought up taught that servants were the machines of their employer’s convenience. Good-nature occasioned much kindliness of manner and intercourse, and every luxury and indulgence was afforded freely; but where there was any want of accordance between the convenience of the two parties, there was no question. The master must be the first object, the servants’ remedy was in their own hands.
Amiable as was Mr. Rivers, this, merely from indulgence and want of reflection, was his principle; and his daughter had only been acting on it, though she did not know it, till the feelings that she had never thought of were thus displayed before her. These were her first practical lessons that life was not meant to be passed in pleasing ourselves, and being good-natured at small cost.
It was an effort. Meta was very dependent, never having been encouraged to be otherwise, and Bellairs was like a necessary of life in her estimation; but strength of principle came to aid her naturally kind-hearted feeling, and she was pleased by the idea of voluntarily undergoing a privation so as to test her sincerity.
So when her father told her of the inconvenient times of the trains, and declared that Bellairs must give it up, she answered by proposing to let her sleep a night or two there, gaily promised to manage very well, and satisfied him.