“Well, if we do not carry that any further, the only thing to be done, I fear, is to part with you.”
“Is there no other way, I wonder,” said Morris, as if thinking aloud. “If it must be one of these ways, it certainly seems to me to be better for ladies to work hard with good food, than to have a servant, and stint themselves in health and strength. But who would have thought of my young ladies coming to this?”
“It is a situation in which hundreds and thousands are placed, Morris; and why not we, as well as they?”
“May be so, ma’am: but it grieves one, too.”
“Do not grieve. I believe we all think that this parting with you is the first real grief that our change of fortune has caused us. Somehow or other, we have been exceedingly comfortable in our poverty. If that had been all, we should have had a very happy year of it.”
“One would desire to say nothing against what is God’s will, ma’am; but one may be allowed, perhaps, to hope that better times will come.”
“I do hope it, and believe it,” said her master.
“And if better times come, Morris, you will return to us. Will you not?”
“My dear, you know nothing would make me leave you now (as you say I am a comfort to you) if I had any right to say I would stay. I could live upon as little as anybody, and could do almost without any wages. But there is my poor sister, you know, ladies. She depends upon me for everything, now that she cannot work herself: and I must earn money for her.”
“We are quite aware of that,” said Margaret. “It is for your sake and hers, quite as much as for our own, that we think we must part.”