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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
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