People don't know how hard it is till they've tried as I have.I made my own glass just as pretty when I first went to Ashcombe; but the muslin got dirty, and the pink ribbons faded, and it is so difficult to earn money to renew them; and when one has got the money one hasn't the heart to spend it all at once.One thinks and one thinks how one can get the most good out of it; and a new gown, or a day's pleasure, or some hot-house fruit, or some piece of elegance that can be seen and noticed in one's drawing-room, carries the day, and good-by to prettily decked looking-glasses.Now here, money is like the air they breathe.No one ever asks or knows how much the washing costs, or what pink ribbon is a yard.Ah! it would be different if they had to earn every penny as I have! They would have to calculate, like me, how to get the most pleasure out of it.I wonder if I am to go on all my life toiling and moiling for money? It's not natural.Marriage is the natural thing; then the husband has all that kind of dirty work to do, and his wife sits in the drawing-room like a lady.I did, when poor Kirkpatrick was alive.Heigho! it's a sad thing to be a widow.' Then there was the contrast between the dinners which she had to share with her scholars at Ashcombe - rounds of beef, legs of mutton, great dishes of potatoes, and large barter-puddings, with the tiny meal of exquisitely cooked delicacies, sent up on old Chelsea china, that was served every day to the earl and countess and herself at the Towers.She dreaded the end of her holidays as much as the most home-loving of her pupils.But at this time that end was some weeks off, so Clare shut her eyes to the future, and tried to relish the present to its fullest extent.A disturbance to the pleasant, even course of the summer days came in the indisposition of Lady Cumnor.Her husband had gone back to London, and she and Mrs Kirkpatrick had been left to the very even tenor of life, which was according to my lady's wish just now.In spite of her languor and fatigue, she had gone through the day when the school visitors came to the Towers, in full dignity, dictating clearly all that was to be done, what walks were to be taken, what hothouses to be seen, and when the party were to return to the 'collation.'
She herself remained indoors, with one or two ladies who had ventured to think that the fatigue or the heat might be too much for them, and who had therefore declined accompanying the ladies in charge of Mrs Kirkpatrick, or those other favoured few to whom Lord Cumnor was explaining the new buildings in his farm-yard.'With the utmost condescension,' as her hearers afterwards expressed it, Lady Cumnor told them all about her married daughters '
establishments, nurseries, plans for the education of their children, and manner of passing the day.But the exertion tired her; and when every one had left, the probability is that she would have gone to lie down and rest, had not her husband made an unlucky remark in the kindness of his heart.
