"Mrs. Brandon, do you suppose that they would be so impertinent——?" she begins, fiercely; then breaks off, ashamed. "I forgot; it would be no impertinence then! Well!" (with a long low sigh) "I am tough: I have borne worse things! This is but a little thing, after all; I can bear this!"
"I think, Esther, that if, as I fear, you are leaning on your own strength, and not on an Unseen Arm, you are overrating your powers of endurance."
"Perhaps; I can but try."
"Impossible!" answers Mrs. Brandon, with cool, common sense. "Who would hire you? Ridiculous!—childish! No, Esther; we must try and find something more eligible for you, if you are still foolishly bent on declining the happy, and respectable, and (I humbly hope I may say) pious home that I am so willing—that we are all so willing—to offer you."
"Oh yes! yes! yes!" cries the child, passionately. "I am bent on it! It is less degrading even to be exposed, as you say, to the witticisms of the footman and the friendship of the cook, than to live upon people on whom you have no claim beyond that of having been already most ungrateful to them—than to impose on their generosity, to sponge upon them!"
"As you will, Esther," answers Mrs. Brandon, loving her too little, and respecting her independence of spirit too much, to reason further with her.
There is a pause—a pause broken presently by Esther, who speaks diffidently: "Mrs. Brandon, don't you think that if I could get into one of those large shops in London, or one of our great towns, I could try on cloaks, and measure yards of ribbon, without requiring any great amount of knowledge of any kind, theoretical or practical?"
Mrs. Brandon looks doubtful. "It is not so easy as you may imagine, my dear, to obtain admission into one of those shops: a friend of mine made great efforts to get a situation for a protégée of hers at Marshal & Snelgrove's, or Lewis & Allenby's, and after waiting a long time, was obliged to give it up as hopeless."
"Perhaps she was not tall?" suggests Esther, rather timidly.
"I really never inquired."