A man is indeed contemptible who is not ready to work; but not to be
contemptible is hardly to be honorable. Walter had never actively
_chosen_ the right way, or put out any energy to walk in it. There are
usurers and sinners nearer the kingdom of heaven than many a
respectable, socially successful youth of education and ambition. Walter
was not simple. He judged things not in themselves, but after an
artificial and altogether foolish standard, for his aim was a false
one--social distinction.

The ways of his father's house were nowise sordid, though so simple that
his losses had made scarcely a difference in them; they were hardly even
humble--only old-fashioned; but Walter was ashamed of them. He even
thought it unlady-like of Molly to rise from the table to wait on her
uncle or himself; and once, when she brought the tea-kettle in her own
little brown hand, he actually reproved her.

The notion that success lies in reaching the modes of life in the next
higher social stratum; the fancy that those ways are the standard of
what is worthy, becoming, or proper; the idea that our standing is
determined by our knowledge of what is or is not _the thing,_ is one of
the degrading influences of modern times. It is only the lack of dignity
at once and courtesy that makes such points of any interest or
consequence.

Fortunately for Walter's temper, his aunt was discreetly silent, too
busy taking the youth's measure afresh to talk much; intent on material
wherewith to make up her mind concerning him. She had had to alter her
idea of him as incapable of providing his own bread and cheese; but as
to what reflection of him was henceforth to inhabit the glass of her
judgment, she had not yet determined, further than that it should be an