Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/84

72 safe from the bar, the pulpit, or the throne, yet which do much harm to inferiors." She protests against ladies sending for their hair-dressers on Sunday, as no doubt they did when the elaborate fabrics worn at parties had to be built up by a master hand, and the least wealthy and distinguished dames had to be attended first of all, and to sit encamped in a circle of chairs, with a sheet over head to keep off the dust, sometimes for thirty-six or twenty-four hours before their public appearance.

Another protest is against "card money," then a perquisite of the servants, whom the guests were expected to fee for furnishing the cards. "If the advantage of the dependant is to increase in a direct ratio with the dissipation of his employer, what encouragement is left for valuable servants, or what prospect remains of securing valuable servants for sober-minded families?"

The denial at the door in the form of "Not at home," was already in vogue, and the argument is unanswerable as to the harm to the servant. "To hope that he will always lie for your convenience and not for his own, is perhaps expecting more from human nature in a low and unformed state than we have any right to expect. Nor should the master look for undeviating and perfect rectitude from his servant, in whom the principle of veracity is daily and hourly being weakened in conformity with his own command."