"Yes," said she, "and other people too, as my grandfather says, and
they have taught me things: and 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