Page:History of Charles Jones, the footman (3).pdf/13

 13

understanding, that I not only determined to bear in future the sneers and scoffs of my fellow servants with patience and fortitude, but even those very sneers which I formerly considered as my heaviest calamity, were now no longer grievous. From this time, therefore, my uneasiness was pretty well at an end. And I earnestly recommend it to all other servants, who have been so happy as to acquire sober and virtuous habits, not to suffer themselves to be laughed out of their sobriety and virtue by the jests and ridicule of their fellow-servants. They may depend upon it that their cause is a good one, and though they suffer for it at first, they will finally triumph. In a short time all my persecution was at an end. ‘To be sure (said the coachman one day to the cook) Charles is a little too religious, but upon my word I don’t think he is the worse of it. Mayhap it might be better for us we were more like him. I don’t see but that he is as humble, friendly, and worthy a fellow as any amongst us. For my part I shall laugh at him no longer.' This speech, which I happened accidentally to overhear, gave me great pleasure, and I soon found by the agreeable change in my fellow-servants conduct towards me, that the coachman had expressed the opinion of the whole hall. It is true I did every thing to obtain their good will that lay in my power. I was civil and obliging to every one among them as I possibly could. Was any thing to be done? if nobody else would do it, I never stopped to consider whether it belonged to my place or not, but did it cut of hand. If any body took it into