"
"Why! what are you about all day?"
Letty gave him a brief sketch of her day.
"And you call that nothing?" exclaimed Tom. "Ain't that enough to
pay for your food and your clothes? Does it want your private
affairs to make up the difference? Or have you to pay for your
food and clothes with your very thoughts?--What pocket-money do
they give you?"
"Pocket-money?" returned Letty, as if she did not quite know what
he meant.
"Money to do what you like with," explained Tom.
Letty thought for a moment.
"Cousin Godfrey gave me a sovereign last Christmas," she
answered. "I have got ten shillings of it yet."
Tom burst into a merry laugh.
"Oh, you dear creature!" he cried. "What a sweet slave you make!
The lowest servant on the farm gets wages, and you get none: yet
you think yourself bound to tell them everything, because they
give you food and clothes, and a sovereign last Christmas!"
Here a gentle displeasure arose in the heart of the girl,
hitherto so contented and grateful. She did not care about money,
but she resented the claim her conscience made for them upon her
confidence. She did not reflect that such claim had never been
made by them; nor that the fact that she felt the claim, proved
that she had been treated, in some measure at least, like a
daughter of the house.
"Why," continued Tom, "it is mere, downright, rank slavery! You
are walking to the sound of your own chains.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125