“Not in the sense you mean,” he said, indignantly. “It takes the daughters of rich fathers to use cosmetics and other necessary articles to enhance their beauty. The poor toiler gets her color from exercise and honorable labor.”
“Well met, my little lady. Frank rather had you there,” said Mr. Legare, laughing.
“Oh, yes, papa, you’ll side with him, because you think so much of her. You’d better change me off for her,” cried Lizzie, angrily, and then she fell to weeping.
As I heard a Western man say, “that was her best hold;” she always conquered with it.
“Dear child, do not be so silly. No one wishes to supplant you. And I am sure your brother had no wish to wound your feelings,” said Mr. Legare, tenderly.
“No, indeed, sis, not a thought of it. If it will make you feel any easier in your mind, I’ll vow that I believe this low-born beauty paints and powders, too.”
“How do we know she is low-born?” asked Mrs. Emory, gravely, but kindly. “Her education and gifts—her very genius would speak to the contrary. Many a well-born person, by a sudden change of fortune, has been reduced to labor. And I, for one, do not consider labor dishonorable. It is hard to be forced to toil for one’s daily bread, if one has to come to it from affluence, but it is not evil. It must be very inconvenient to be poor; but surely in a grand republic like this it is not a disgrace.”
“Huzza for Aunt Louisa! That’s my philosophy, too,” cried Frank.
Lizzie laughed. She couldn’t cry over three minutes at a time, and then smiles followed, just as the sunlight comes after an April shower.
“Your Aunt Louisa always takes a sensible view of things, my dear children, and though she makes no boasts of it, I dare say few persons more often extend the full hand of Christian charity.”