"Poor thing," sighed Dorothy, looking after her, "we have our cares, but we never know what it is to lack an abundant supply of wholesome food. Now here is a lady, well educated and delicately nurtured, who is destitute of the common necessaries of life. This ought to be a lesson to me, to be contented with my lot."
Dorothy did not feel quite satisfied with herself on this point. She struggled hard to suppress a regretful sense of inferiority—a growing disgust and aversion to her laborious life, which had stolen into her mind since she had seen the interior of that lordly mansion, and beheld the beautiful works of art it contained; the taste and elegance displayed in the costly furniture, and the luxurious comfort which reigned everywhere.
She looked down upon her coarse garments and sun-burnt hands, and contrasted them painfully with the regal beauty and costly apparel of the titled lady whose portrait she so strangely resembled.
Why should the mere accident of birth, which neither could command, make such a startling difference? It was a mystery Dorothy could not comprehend? It seemed to her unjust—that made of the same flesh and blood, their situations should be so widely dissimilar, their lives lie so far apart. Then the words of the wise St. Paul came in to comfort her—"One star differeth from another star in glory,"—and she was terrified at the presumption that dared to question the wisdom and justice of the great Sovereign of the universe.
"Still, it would be so pleasant to be a lady," thought Dorothy, "to have leisure to acquire knowledge. To be able to read all those splendid books I saw in my lord's library. To examine, whenever I liked, those beautiful pictures, to play on that golden harp that stood in the corner near one of the large windows, and to live surrounded by such magnificence—never to be obliged to work in the fields, exposed to a hot sun, or to be addressed familiarly by rude vulgar people, who consider that they have a right to command your services."
Poor Dorothy had unwittingly gathered that morning the fruit of the forbidden tree, and found the knowledge it imparted very bitter and indigestible.
"This is downright wickedness!" she cried at last. "I am a foolish ungrateful creature, to try and measure the wide gulf that lies between the rich and educated, and the poor and ignorant by my feeble intellect. God has apportioned to each their lot; and why should I feel envious and discontented, that the best lot did not fall to my share?
"What do I know of the joys and sorrows of these great people? I do not see the poisonous serpent lurking among the flowers in their gay gardens, or the shadows that may darken the glory of their day. Lord Wilton's rank does not exempt him from care. His handsome face is full of trouble and anxiety. Tears were in his eyes when he mentioned his son. He felt just as uneasy about him, as father does about Gilbert. A lord, after all, is but a man."
Having arrived at this conclusion, the cloud passed from Dorothy's bright face, her step grew lighter, and nature again smiled upon her like a divine picture, fresh from the hands of the Creator.