Lucy resumed her reading. “Florence goes on: ‘Never mind; they have both enjoyed the best of everything, and have had many advantages which they might not have had, if people had not believed them to be rich. Jem is always saying that there’s nothing so expensive as poverty. Therefore, though there is not much property left, it won’t matter much, for in many ways Mrs. Bray’s spending days are necessarily over. Jem is managing so cleverly that she will scarcely know she is poorer than she used to be. She will even be able to afford to go on living in the same house, when she returns to London. It would be a great trial to her if she could not hope to do that—and it can be managed, for, you see, she is old and can’t live long. She trusts Jem implicitly and leaves everything to him. She always says, “I don’t want to know anything about money matters; I never have known and I don’t wish to begin now. I ask for nothing but my little comforts and Rachel to look after me.” And then Jem assures her that is quite easy, and so she is satisfied. I can’t think what Mrs. Bray would do without Rachel. She is more devoted to her mistress than ninety-nine daughters out of a hundred are to their mothers. I don’t anticipate that my girls will be half so kind to me when my dismal days come—and of course, I hope they’ll be married and gone off long before I’m an old woman. I should not like to be the mother of ungathered wall-flowers! But where am I likely to find a Rachel? I’ll just have to go and stay at an “hydropathic” when I’m an old woman. But old age is a long way off yet—and I devoutly trust that I’ll be dead before it comes.’” Those last words struck Lucy. She had heard them before—the very same words—spoken by a humble working woman, whose strenuous labours could not provide for more than the wants of each day. All that woman’s year’s work for a certain company had actually brought her in less than Jem Brand got as annual dividend upon each hundred pounds he had invested in its shares. Lucy had heard that woman say, “I’ve only one chance to escape the workhouse. I hope I’ll die before I am old.” The poor overworked woman had felt thus for one reason, and now the wealthy idle woman felt so for another. What did it all mean? Where had life gone wrong? Of these two women, one had all that the other lacked, yet it did not suffice to save her from the worst bitterness of that other life. Lucy remembered having read somewhere that Lazarus does not perish for lack of aught that is good for Dives, but for lack of that excess by which Dives destroys himself. But in these days Lucy did not think over theories and practices as she had been wont to do. She hardly dared to think at all, for the moment thought got a-working, it seized on the terrible reality that still neither word nor sign came from Charlie!