CHAPTER XX

Several quiet forces at work.

Precipitous ascents and descents do not constitute the greater part of life’s journey.  In the experience of very many they occur more or less frequently, but they conduct to long intervals where the way is comparatively level, although it may be flinty, rough, and hedged with thorns.  More often the upward trend or the decline of our paths is so slight as not to be noticed as we pass on, but at the end of years we can know well whether we are gaining or losing.

The Jocelyns, in common with thousands of others, had made a swift descent from a position of comparative affluence to one of real, though not repulsive, poverty.  There was nothing, however, in their fall that cast a shadow upon them in the eyes of the world except as the unfortunate are always “under a cloud” to the common herd that moves together in droves only where the sunlight of prosperity fails.  If Mr. Jocelyn could regain his former position, or a better one, there had been nothing in his brief obscurity that would prevent his wife and daughters from stepping back into their old social place, with all its privileges and opportunities.

The reader knows, however, that his prospects were becoming more and more dubious—­that each day added a rivet to the chain that an evil habit was forging.  His family did not even suspect this, although the impression was growing upon them that his health was becoming impaired.  They were beginning to accommodate themselves to life at its present level, and the sense of its strangeness was passing slowly away.  This was especially true of Belle and the children, upon whom the past had but a comparatively slight hold.  Mildred, from her nature and tastes, felt the change more keenly than any of the others, and she could never forget that it raised a most formidable barrier against her dearest hopes.  Mrs. Jocelyn also suffered greatly from the privations of her present lot, and her delicate organization was scarcely equal to the tasks and burdens it imposed.  As far as possible she sought to perform the domestic duties that were more suited to the stout, red arms of those accustomed to such labors.  It seemed essential that Mildred and Belle should give their strength to supplementing their father’s small income, for a time at least, though all were living in hope that this necessity would soon pass away.  The family was American, and Southern at that, in the idea that bread-winning was not woman’s natural province, but only one of the direful penalties of extreme poverty.  The working-woman of the South belonged to a totally different class from that in which Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn had their origin, and prejudices die hard, even among people who are intelligent, and, in most respects, admirable.  To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless menial and undignified because