"Not at all. If there are silk-worms enough in the world to yield silk wherewith to dress every man, woman and child, where is the harm of every man, woman, and child wearing silk, if it pleases them to do so?"
"But the look of it, sir! Think of a girl dressing like her mistress!"
"It is an unfit thing when the girl has not money enough properly to afford such a dress. But if the price falls to a point within her reach, there is no more reason why she should not possess herself of such an one than there would be if she had had money left her wherewith to buy it. Her mistress will forthwith array herself in some more expensive fabric, which, perhaps, none below duchesses had worn till it became cheaper in proportion, as silk had done; and this fabric will, in its turn, descend within the reach of servants, till Mrs. Mudge's maid may, in her old age, be as much surprised at the array of the young girls of that time as you now are at people of her rank wearing silk."
"But, papa," objected Lucy, "what are the ladies to do all this time? Must duchesses go on inventing expensive things to wear, or else dress like their maids?"
"There will be always plenty of people able and willing to save the duchesses the trouble of inventing," replied her papa. "We have not yet seen half of what human ingenuity may do in the way of inventing comforts and discovering beauties. If you could pop into the world again a few hundred years hence, you might chance to find every African between the tropics dressed in clear muslin, and every Laplander comfortably muffled in superfine scarlet or blue cloth."
"And what would our duchesses wear then, papa?"
"Something which we cannot guess at; and which to them would appear more beautiful and convenient than was ever invented before."
Nurse wondered what her master could be thinking of. Instead of having people humble and contented with their condition, he would have them be looking up and on continually.
"Have you seen the gipsy women lately?" inquired her master. Not very lately, nurse replied; but she probably should soon, as a great annual gipsy feast was to be held within the month, somewhere near town; and no doubt the Drapers would return to their old haunts for the occasion.
"Do you bid them be contented with their condition, living in tents, on the damp ground, and eating animals that they find dead?"