The parasite
who makes himself agreeable to dinner-givers, who calculates upon his
accomplishments as a stock in trade, intending that his brains shall
feed his stomach,--what is he, pray? It is ungracious to stigmatize
such a jolly dog. The woman whose fingers are hooped with rings won
in wagers which gallantry or folly could not decline, who is ready by
_philopaena_, or even by more direct suggestions, to lay every beau or
acquaintance under contribution,--is she a beggar, too? It is a long
way, to be sure, from the girl with scanty and draggled petticoat and
tangled hair, picking out lumps of coal from ash-heaps, or carrying home
refuse from the tables of the rich,--a long way from that squalid object
to the richly-cloaked, furred, bonneted, jewelled, flaunting lady, whose
friends are all _so_ kind.
But the most charitable must feel a certain degree of pity, if not of
scorn, for those who, like Mr. and Miss Sandford, contrive to wear the
outward semblance of respectability, boarding with fashionable people
and wearing garments _a la mode_, while they have neither fortune nor
visible occupation. Miss Sandford, to be sure, had a few pupils in
music,--young friends, who, as she averred, "insisted upon practising
with her, although she did not profess to give lessons," not she.
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