in most respects, admirable. To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work
was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless
menial and undignified because of its almost involuntary and hereditary
association with a race of bond-servants. He is superficial indeed
in his estimate of character who thinks that people can change
their views and feelings in response to a brief demonstration of
the essential dignity of labor, especially after generations of
accumulating pride of caste have been giving the mind a different
bent. Moreover, this family of Southern origin had not seen in
the city of New York very much confirmation of the boasted Northern
ideas of labor. Social status depended too much on the number of
servants that people kept and the style in which they lived. Poverty
had brought them a more sudden and complete loss of recognition than
would have been possible in the South--a loss which they would not
have felt so greatly had they wealthy connections in town through
whom they might have retained, in part at least, their old relations
with people of their own station.

As it was, they found themselves almost wholly isolated. Mrs.
Jocelyn did not regret this so much for herself, since her family
was about all the society she craved; moreover in her girlhood she
had been accustomed to rather remote plantation life, with its long
intervals of absence of society. Mr. Jocelyn's business took him
out among men even more than he relished, for his secret indulgence
predisposed to solitude and quiet. He was living most of the time
in an unreal world, and inevitable contact with his actual life
and surroundings brought him increasing distress.

With Belle and Mildred it was different. At their age society and
recreation were as essential as air and light. Many are exceedingly