Bab gasped. Phyllis cried: "A nurse girl! Jessamy!" But Jessamy turned white to her lips. "Will you allow me to sit on your steps and sun my young charge, if I take care to keep my aprons clean?" she asked slowly, her voice low and ominously steady.
"Don't be a fool, Jessamy, and have high-flown notions. Any work is honorable, and you are not trained to skilled labor," said her aunt.
"All labor is certainly honorable, aunt," said Phyllis, seeing that Jessamy dared not speak again. "But there are degrees in its attractiveness. It would be short-sighted wisdom to put a talented creature like our princess to doing what the humblest emigrant can perform, wasting all her opportunities. I am afraid I cannot understand how you could consent to pushing any of us down, instead of helping us up."
"We shall not need help," said Jessamy, her head up like a young racer. "I hope to manage quite well alone. Will you excuse us from more of this sort of talk, aunt? We have had a hard day, and are tired."
Mrs. Hewlett rose; her eldest niece always overawed her, in spite of her determination not to mind what she to herself called "Jessamy's affected airs."
"I felt sure I should not find you chastened by misfortune," she said. "You should take your downfall in a more Christian spirit. I trust you will heed me in one point, at least. Sell your best clothes and ornaments. It will be most unbecoming if, in your altered circumstances, you dress in articles bought for Henry Wyndham's daughters. People will make the most unkind comments if you do."
Barbara had recovered by this time. "Aren't we still Henry Wyndham's daughters, aunt?" she asked guilelessly. "I didn't realize parentage as well as inheritance was vested in the business. What a calamity that it failed! As to unkind remarks, no mere acquaintances will make them; all but our relatives will understand that we could afford fine things when we had them, and that failure naturally did not destroy them. I give you fair warning, I mean to look my best, whatever the rest do, else I may be defeated in my plan to get back to luxury by a brilliant marriage."
"Bab, how could you?" said Jessamy, reproachfully, as their aunt disappeared. "She will take that for solemn truth and despise you. There's no use in making her worse than she is."
"I couldn't, Lady Jessamy; nature is perfect in her works. And I'll tell you one thing for your edification: If I did mean it, and did succeed in marrying for money, so far from despising me, she would be proud of me, and talk to every one about 'my charming niece, Barbara,'" said Bab, venomously.
"Oh, don't, Bab!" cried Phyllis, distressed. "We've been poor only one day, and here are you growing bitter! That's the worst of this sort of misfortune, I feel sure in advance. It shows people in such a horrid light that the victims get cynical and nasty. Do let us keep sweet and wholesome through it all, for if we're that, and have each other, nothing else matters seriously."