'Owen,' she continued, with dignity, 'what is he to me? Nothing. I must dismiss such weakness as this--believe me, I will. Something far more pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my position steadily in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I mean to advertise once more.' 'Advertising is no use.' 'This one will be.' He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of her answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and showed it him. 'See what I am going to do,' she said sadly, almost bitterly.
This was her third effort:-'LADY'S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.--G., 3 Cross Street, Budmouth.' Owen--Owen the respectable--looked blank astonishment. He repeated in a nameless, varying tone, the two words-'Lady's-maid!' 'Yes; lady's-maid. 'Tis an honest profession,' said Cytherea bravely.
'But _you_, Cytherea?' 'Yes, I--who am I?' 'You will never be a lady's-maid--never, I am quite sure.' 'I shall try to be, at any rate.' 'Such a disgrace--' 'Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!' she said, rather warmly. 'You know very well--' 'Well, since you will, you must,' he interrupted. 'Why do you put "inexperienced?"' 'Because I am.' 'Never mind that--scratch out "inexperienced." We are poor, Cytherea, aren't we?' he murmured, after a silence, 'and it seems that the two months will close my engagement here.' 'We can put up with being poor,' she said, 'if they only give us work to do. . . . Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a curse, and even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and never mind!' In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the brighter endurance of women at these epochs--invaluable, sweet, angelic, as it is--owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that shuts out many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a hopefulness intense enough to quell them.