"You have taught me that there is no degradation in labor, pursued for fair and right ends, and that where the end is noble, the labor becomes ennobling."
"But what noble ends can be alleged for the drudgery of domestic life? I am translating your looks into language," said Mr. Grahame, turning playfully to his guest; "correct me if I do not read them rightly."
"If I say you do, I fear Miss Grahame will think them very impertinent looks."
"I shall not complain of them while I can reply to them so easily," said Mary gayly. "He who knows how much a well-ordered household contributes to the cultivation of domestic virtues and family affections, will not think a woman degraded who sacrifices somewhat of her tastes and pleasures to the deeper happiness of procuring such advantages for those she loves."
"But is not that state of society preferable, in which, without her personal interference, by the employment of those who have no higher tastes, she may accomplish the same object?"
"That question proves that you do not, like my father, desire to see the working and the thinking classes united. You seem to propose that the first shall ever remain our hewers of wood and drawers of water."
"Is it not a fact that there have been, are, and always will be those in the world who are fitted for no other position?"
"That there are and always have been such persons, I acknowledge; but when labor ceases to be degrading, because it is partaken by all, may we not hope that new aspirations will be awakened in the laborer—that he will elevate himself in the scale of being when he feels elevation possible?"
Mary Grahame spoke with generous enthusiasm, yet with a modest gentleness which made Horace Danforth desire to continue the argument.
"Admitting all this," he said, "it does not answer my question, which was, whether you did not prefer that state of society in which you were able to avail yourself of the services of such a class?"