"And yet, Nelly, a great many of the ladies you see here would almost as soon gather swill, as you do, as work in the shop. There is a lady—I tell you this in confidence, and you must not repeat it—who makes tatting for us, and does beautiful embroidery. We pay her a great deal of money every year, yet she is always in a fright lest some of her genteel acquaintances should find out that she works for a shop; and, I am sorry to say, she has told a good many wrong stories about it. What do you think of that?"
"She is very silly," said Nelly. "I should think she would be proud of earning money."
"On the contrary, she thinks it a degradation. She feels herself lowered by it; and, if any of her fine acquaintances should meet her here and see her receiving pay for her work, she would cry as bitterly as you did just now, and with just about as much reason."
Welly blushed scarlet. "But, after all, Miss Powell, it is not nice work," said she. "It is nasty, disagreeable work, and gets my hands and clothes all dirt."
"That is a very good reason why you should dislike it, and why you should want to do something better as soon as possible, but no reason why you should be ashamed of it, so long as it is necessary. If you were depending on other people for support while you could help yourself, or if you were pursuing any dishonest course to obtain money, you would have good reason to be ashamed of that; but you need never blush to have people know that you do any kind of honest and necessary work."
"I am ashamed of our house, sometimes," said Nelly. "It looks so shackling and dirty, and every thing lies all about; while all the places around are neat and pretty, and painted up so nice. I do try, sometimes, to put things in order; but granny is put out when I do, and says I feel above her."
"You see, granny has her pride too, Nelly. But I would not worry her about it. She is growing an old woman, and, I dare say, does not feel very well."
"Granny is very different from what she used to be," said Nelly, after she had worked a while in silence. "It worries me a great deal, sometimes."
"How different?" asked Miss Powell.
"She used always to be so good-natured," said Nelly; "nothing ever seemed to put her out, hardly. And now every thing makes her cross. Some days she frets from morning till night, and I can't do any thing to please her."