Perhaps it might do something to modify the scorn of all classes for those beneath them, to consider that, by regarding others thus, they justify those above them in looking down upon them in their turn.  In London shops, I am credibly informed, the young women who serve in the show-rooms, or behind the counters, are called ladies, and talk of the girls who make up the articles for sale as persons.  To the learned professions, however, the distinction between the shopwomen and milliners is, from their superior height, unrecognizable; while doctors and lawyers are again, I doubt not, massed by countesses and other blue-blooded realities, with the literary lions who roar at soirees and kettle-drums, or even with chiropodists and violin-players!  But I am growing scornful at scorn, and forget that I too have been scornful.  Brothers, sisters, all good men and true women, let the Master seat us where He will.  Until he says, “Come up higher,” let us sit at the foot of the board, or stand behind, honoured in waiting upon His guests.  All that kind of thing is worth nothing in the kingdom; and nothing will be remembered of us but the Master’s judgment.

I have known a good churchwoman who would be sweet as a sister to the abject poor, but offensively condescending to a shopkeeper or a dissenter, exactly as if he was a Pariah, and she a Brahmin.  I have known good people who were noble and generous towards their so-called inferiors and full of the rights of the race—­until it touched their own family, and just no longer.  Yea I, who had talked like this for years, at once, when Tom Weir wanted to marry my sister, lost my faith in the broad lines of human distinction. judged according to appearances in which I did not even believe, and judged not righteous judgment.

“For,” reasoned the world in me, “is it not too bad to drag your wife in for such an alliance?  Has she not lowered herself enough already?  Has she not married far below her accredited position in society?  Will she not feel injured by your family if she see it capable of forming such a connexion?”

What answer I returned to Tom I hardly know.  I remember that the poor fellow’s face fell, and that he murmured something which I did not heed.  And then I found myself walking in the garden under the great cedar, having stepped out of the window almost unconsciously, and left Tom standing there alone.  It was very good of him ever to forgive me.

Wandering about in the garden, my wife saw me from her window, and met me as I turned a corner in the shrubbery.

And now I am going to have my revenge upon her in a way she does not expect, for making me tell the story:  I will tell her share in it.

“What is the matter with you, Henry?” she asked.

“Oh, not much,” I answered.  “Only that Weir has been making me rather uncomfortable.”

“What has he been doing?” she inquired, in some alarm.  “It is not possible he has done anything wrong.”