"No, sister, certainly not. The old watchmaker's daughter will reflect honor upon any family whose name she bears; for she is one among a thousand."
"Oh Edward! What will our mother say? How will our mother feel?"
"Clara," said the brother, speaking seriously, "is there anything wrong, abstractly, in being a watchmaker?"
"I did not say there was."
"Or in teaching music?"
"No; not wrong."
"May not a watchmaker be as much a gentleman as a physician?"
"I suppose so."
"Then, in the fact of being a watchmaker there is nothing that should make one man less esteemed than another man, no better than he is, who follows a profession. Both are useful employments, and so far as they are concerned, he who most faithfully and honestly discharges the duties of his calling, and his social and domestic obligations, is the best man, let the world think and say what it pleases. And not only the best man, but the best friend a man who wants one can choose. So much for the watchmaker. And the same may be said of the music teacher. I don't know that there is any greater honor in receiving musical instruction than there is in imparting it. The general impression is, that the preceptor is superior to the scholar, just in the degree that knowledge is considered superior to ignorance."
"But that doesn't show that you ought to go below your own sphere in society and marry a music teacher, Edward."