“If you are afraid of my falling in love with a girl you don't think good enough for me, you have taken the wrong way to keep me from thinking about her, mother. You remember the costermonger whose family quarrelled with him for marrying beneath him? If a girl be a good girl, she is good for me, whether she be the daughter of the cats'-meat-man or of a royal duke! I know that's not the way people who call themselves Christians think! They want, of course, to keep up the selfishness of the breed!” It was horribly rude, and Jane burst into tears. Richard's heart softened. It is well our hearts are sometimes in advance of our consciences--we are so slow to recognize injustice in defence of the right! Richard's wrong to his mother was a lack of faith in her. Where he did not understand and she would not explain, he did not even give her the benefit of the doubt. He treated her just as many of us, calling ourselves Christians, treat the Father--not in words, perhaps, or even in definite thoughts, but in feelings and actions. “You will be sorry for this one day, Richard!” she sobbed. “Whatever I do is from care over you!” “To wrong another for my sake, never can be any good to me. If money wrong-got be a curse, so is any good wrong-got.” “You won't trust me, Richard! My own father is a blacksmith: why should I look down upon a dressmaker?” “That's just what I think, mother!--Why?” “I don't!” returned Mrs. Tuke--and there she paused: another step might bring her to the edge of the gulf! Richard looked at her moodily for a moment, then turned away to the workshop; where, after his ill success with his mother, he was hardly less disinclined to challenge his father than before, for he knew him inexpugnable. CHAPTER XII. _MORTGRANGE._ In the spring came a letter from young Lestrange, through Simon Armour, asking Richard upon what terms he would undertake the work wanted in the library. He handed the letter to his father, and they held a consultation. “There's this to be considered,” said the bookbinder, “that, if you go there, you lose your connection here--in a measure, at least. Therefore you cannot do the work at the same rate as in your own shop.” “On the other hand, I should have my keep.” “That is true, and of course is something; but I think it may fairly be held to do no more than make up for the advantages of living in London--your classes, for instance.” “Anyhow I must be paid so much a month, and do what I can in the time. I couldn't charge by the individual job in a man's own house!--The thing I am afraid of is, that, not knowing the niceties of the work, they may fancy I don't do enough.” “In the other way they would fancy you charged too much, and that would come to the same thing!--But they will at least discover that you keep to your hours and stick to your work!--We must calculate by what the best hands in the trade get a week!”