herself too much in earnest before
she was sure of Mary.

"You would not ask me to do anything _menial_?" said Mary, archly.

"I dare not promise," said Hesper, in tone responsive. "How could I
help it, if I saw you longing to do what I was longing to have you do?"
she added, growing more and more natural.

"I would no more mind cleaning your boots than my own," said Mary.

"But I should not like to clean my own boots," rejoined Hesper.

"No more should I, except it had to be done. Even then I would much
rather not," returned Mary, "for cleaning my own would not interest me.
To clean yours would. Still I would rather not, for the time might be
put to better use--except always it were necessary, and then, of
course, it couldn't. But as to anything degrading in it, I scorn the
idea. I heard my father once say that, to look down on those who have
to do such things may be to despise them for just the one honorable
thing about them.--Shall I tell you what I understand by the word
_menial_? You know it has come to have a disagreeable taste about it,
though at first it only meant, as you say, something that fell to the
duty of attendants."

"Do tell me," answered Hesper, with careless permission.

"I did not find it out myself," said Mary. "My father taught me. He was
a wise as well as a good man, Mrs. Redmain."

"Oh!" said Hesper, with the ordinary indifference of fashionable people
to what an inferior may imagine worth telling them.

"He said," persisted Mary, notwithstanding, "that it is menial to
undertake anything you think beneath you for the sake of money; and
still more menial, having undertaken it, not to do it as well as
possible."

"That would make out a good deal more of the menial in the world than
is commonly supposed," laughed Hesper. "I wonder who would do anything
for you if you didn't pay them--one way or another!"

"I've taken my father's shoes out of Beenie's hands many a time," said
Mary, "and finished them myself, just for the pleasure of making them
shine for _him_."

"Re-a-ally!" drawled Hesper, and set out for the conclusion that after
all it was no such great compliment the young woman had paid her in
wanting to brush her hair. Evidently she had a taste for low
things!--was naturally menial!--would do as much for her own father as
for a lady like her! But the light in Mary's eyes checked her.

"Any service done without love, whatever it be," resumed Mary, "is
slavery--neither more nor