And she patted the sweet, fall, rosy cheek.
Catherine was very pretty indeed, if you care to know that, and so it was settled.
And now, Lettice having enjoyed a happier hour than she had known for many a long day, began to recollect herself, and to think of poor Myra.
She rose from her chair, and taking up her bonnet and shawl, which Catherine had hung before the fire to dry, seemed preparing to depart.
Then both Catherine and Mrs. Danvers began to think of her little bill, which had not been settled yet. Catherine felt excessively awkward and uncomfortable at the idea of offering her old friend and companion money; but Mrs. Danvers was too well acquainted with real misery, had too much approbation for that spirit which is not above earning, but is above begging, to have any embarrassment in such a case.
"Catherine, my dear," she said, "you owe Miss Arnold some money. Had you not better settle it before she leaves?"
Both the girls blushed.
"Nay, my dears," said Mrs. Danvers, kindly; "why this? I am sure," coming up to them, and taking Lettice's hand, "I hold an honest hand here, which is not ashamed to labor, when it has been the will of God that it shall be by her own exertions that she obtains her bread, and part of the bread of another, if I mistake not. What you have nobly earned as nobly receive. Humiliation belongs to the idle and the dependent, not to one who maintains herself."
The eyes of Lettice glistened, and she could not help gently pressing the hand which held hers.
Such sentiments were congenial to her heart. She had never been able to comprehend the conventional distinctions between what is honorable or degrading, under the fetters of which so many lose the higher principles of independence—true honesty and true honor. To work for her living had never lessened her in her own eyes; and she had found, with a sort of astonishment, that it was to sink her in the eyes of others. To deny herself every thing in food, furniture, clothing, in order to escape debt, and add in her little way to the comforts of those she loved, had ever appeared to her noble and praiseworthy. She was as astonished, as many such a heart has been before her, with the course of this world's esteem, too often measured by what people spend upon themselves, rather than by what they spare. I can not get that story in the newspaper—the contempt expressed for the dinner of one mutton chop, potatoes, and a few greens—out of my head.