d this is the upshot of it. We live in a little
house now, not because we have nothing grander to do than working in the
fields, but because we please; for if we liked, we could go and live in a
big house amongst pleasant companions."

Grumbled the old man: "Just so! As if I would live amongst those
conceited fellows; all of them looking down upon me!"

She smiled on him kindly, but went on as if he had not spoken. "In the
past times, when those big houses of which grandfather speaks were so
plenty, we _must_ have lived in a cottage whether we had liked it or not;
and the said cottage, instead of having in it everything we want, would
have been bare and empty. We should not have got enough to eat; our
clothes would have been ugly to look at, dirty and frowsy. You,
grandfather, have done no hard work for years now, but wander about and
read your books and have nothing to worry you; and as for me, I work hard
when I like it, because I like it, and think it does me good, and knits
up my muscles, and makes me prettier to look at, and healthier and
happier. But in those past days you, grandfather, would have had to work
hard after you were old; and would have been always afraid of having to
be shut up in a kind of prison along with other old men, half-starved and
without amusement. And as for me, I am twenty years old. In those days
my middle age would be beginning now, and in a few years I should be
pinched, thin, and haggard, beset with troubles and miseries, so that no
one could have guessed that I was once a beautiful girl.

"Is this what you have had in your mind, guest?" said she, the tears in
her eyes at thought of the past miseries of people like herself.

"Yes," said I, much moved; "that and more. Often--in my country I have
seen that wretched change you have spoken of, from the fresh handsome
country lass to the poor draggle-tailed country woman."

The old man sat silent for a little, but presently recovered himself and
took comfort in his old phrase of "Well, you like it so, do you?"

"Yes," said Ellen, "I love life better than death."

"O, you do, do you?" said he. "Well, for my part I like reading a good
old book with plenty of fun in it, like Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair.' Why
don't you write books like that now? Ask that question of your
Bloomsbury sage."

Seeing Dick's cheeks reddening a little at this sally, and noting that
silence followed, I thought I had better do something. So I said: "I