“There is no need, my dear. I trust they do us the justice to believe that our affections graduate according to a truer scale than that of hereditary rank.”
“You have shown that they do by marrying me.”
“All people show it in the most important circumstances of their lives,—in their attachments. Alas for man, if the movements within must correspond with the outward state! Whom then would kings love?”
“And (what is more important) how should the poverty-stricken look up through the ranks above him, and say, with hope in his eye and assurance in his voice, ‘I am a brother?’ How else should the stirring thought be kept alive in him that his rights will not be for ever overlaid, his claims not be for ever incompatible with those of his brethren? Natural affinities are ever acting, even now, in opposition to circumstance. They will in time direct us to the due control of circumstance. Meanwhile, let no class imagine that any other class denies the existence of these affinities, or resists their workings.—I will go and see how they are acting in the village.—Shall I bring you some of Mrs. White’s snuff?”
“Why, thank you, I am not aware of any affinity between a rappee canister and my nostrils. But the old sexton is a snuff-taker. Call upon him by all means, and show him that you understand his likings. He will gratify some of yours, if you find him in a talkative mood.”
Chapter V.
OBSERVING AT HAND.
A tribe of little children had gathered round Mrs. White’s windows before Letitia and Thérèse arrived at the shop; the reason of which was that the grocery and drapery goods were disposed in a new style of elegance, in honour of her ladyship. Such tempting candies in the one window; such shining pins, such a rainbow box of cottons, such rolls of ribands, stuffs, calicoes, and flannels in the other! The little things could not be persuaded to move off even when White, who was on the watch, bustled about to make a clear path for the lady. There was plenty of bobbing from the girls, and pulling of forelocks from the boys; plenty of elbowing, and pushing, and signing, when it became necessary for somebody to speak in answer to her kind questions; but there was no inclination to make way. They were even rude enough to crowd about the door and peep in, while she was buying snuff and sugar-candy.
Letitia soon found that if White was shrewd in changing his occupation and profession according to circumstances, his wife was no less shrewd in understanding and conducting her own. It would be a wonder, the lady thought, if between them, they did not prove a match for their co-operative neighbours.
“I charge you the lowest, ma’am, the lowest, I assure you; and as low as is fair....”