Juliet disclaimed taking any share in his present munificence; yet owned that she had an ancient obligation to him that she was unable, at this moment, to repay; and which, from the delicacy with which it had been conferred, and the seasonable relief which it had procured her, would merit her lasting gratitude. He was brother-in-law, she added, to the lady with whom she had lately resided; and he was as rich as he was benevolent.
Her scruples, then, Gabriella said, were at an end. Juliet, therefore, begged that she would endeavour to enter into conversation with him concerning Brighthelmstone; and try to obtain some particulars relative to the party at Mrs Ireton's.
'I began to fear you had flown away, Ma'am,' said Sir Jaspar, upon Gabriella's re-entrance into the shop; 'and I was much less surprised than concerned; for I had already surmized that you were an angel; though I had failed to remark your wings.'
He then put into her hand three more pieces of ribbon, which he had chosen during her absence.
Gabriella, who understood English well, though she spoke it imperfectly, made her answers in French.
Having now given her ample employment, he sat down to examine, or, rather, to admire at his ease, the lightness and grace with which she executed her office; saying, 'You are not, perhaps, aware, Madam, that there are certain little beings, nameless and invisible, yet active and penetrating, perpetually hovering around us, who have let me a little into your history; and have taken upon them to assure me that you were not precisely brought up to be a shop-keeper? How, then, is it that you have jumbled thus together such heterogeneous materials of existence? leaguing high birth with low life? superiour rank with vulgar employment; and grace, taste, and politeness with common drudgery? How, in short, born and bred to be dangled after by your vassals, and to lollop, the live-long-day, upon sofas and arm-chairs, have you acquired the necessary ingredients for being metamorphosed into a tidy little haberdasher?'
Gabriella, concluding that her situation had been made known to him by Juliet, answered, in a melancholy tone,
'Is this a period, Sir, to consider punctilio? Alas! whence I come, all that are greatest, most ancient, and most noble,[1] have learnt, that self-exertion can alone mark nobility of soul; and that self-dependence only can sustain honour in adversity. Alas, whence I come, the first youth is initiated in the view, if not in the endurance of misfortune! There can be no understanding, or there must be early reflection; there can be no heart, or there must be commiserating sympathy!'
'I protest, Ma'am,' cried Sir Jaspar, looking at her with astonishment, 'I begin to suspect that I came into the world only this morning! Where I may have been rambling, all these years, in the persuasion I was in it already, I have by no means any clear notion! But to see two such instances of wisdom and resignation, united with youth and beauty, makes me believe myself in some new region, never yet visited by vice or folly.'
'Ah, Sir, the French Revolution has opened our eyes to a species of equality more rational, because more feasible, than that of lands or of rank; an equality not alone of mental sufferings, but of manual exertions. No state of life, however low, or however hard, has been left untried, either by the highest, or by the most delicate, in the various dispersions and desolation of the ancient French nobility. And to see,—as I, alas! have seen,—the willing efforts, the even glad toil, of the remnants of the first families of Europe, to procure,—not luxuries, not elegancies, not even comforts,—but maintenance! mean, laborious maintenance!—to preserve,—not state, not fortune, not rank,—but life itself! but simple existence!'—