Dinah Craik

“ You know I always do. You have been the kindest master—the truest friend to me; I hope, as long as I live, rarely to oppose, and never to deceive you."
His manner—-earnest, yet most respectful—his candid looks, under which lurked an evident anxiety and pain, might have mollified a harder man than Abel Fletcher.
"John, why dost thee want to go among those grand folk?"
"Not because they are grand folk. I have other reasons—strong reasons." ”

“ Jessop, sir."
"I know," grumbled my father. "The doctor is a fool in his old age. Who did she want thee to meet?"
"She!—Oh, Lady Caroline, you mean?"
"Lady Caroline wishes particularly to see John."
Abel Fletcher stopped, planted his stick in the ground, released his arm from John's, and eyed him from top to toe.
"Thee?—a woman of quality wanting to see THEE? Young man, thee art a hypocrite."
"Sir!"
"I knew it! I foresaw how thy fine ways would end! Going to London- —crawling at the heels of grand folk—despising thy honest trade— trying to make thyself appear a gentleman!" ”

“ John started. Well he might, for even to our quiet town had come, all this winter, foul newspaper tales about Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
"Take care," he said, in much agitation. "Any taint upon a woman's fame harms not her alone but all connected with her. For God's sake, sir, whether it be true or not, do not whisper in Norton Bury that Lady Caroline Brithwood is a friend of Lady Hamilton."
"Pshaw! What is either woman to us?"
And my father climbed the steps to his own door, John following. ”

“ She stopped at the gates of the Mythe House; great iron gates, a barrier as proud and impassable as that which in these times the rich shut against the poor, the aristocrat against the plebeian. John, glancing once up at them, hurriedly moved on. ”

“ Jessop's, with Mr. and Lady Caroline Brithwood, of the Mythe House.
"Give them to your father, Phineas." And John vainly tried to hide the flash of his eye—the smiles that came and went like summer lightning—"To-morrow—you see, it is to-morrow."
Poor lad! he had forgotten every worldly thing in the hope of that to-morrow.
My father's sharp voice roused him. "Phineas, thee'lt stay at home. Tell the woman I say so."
"And John, father?"
"John may go to ruin if he chooses. He is his own master." ”

“ I could only murmur—"Heaven grant it!"
"But we shall never marry, neither one nor the other of us; we shall go on apart and alone till the next world. Perhaps she will come to me then: I may have her in my heart there." ”

“ But that is only my calling, not me. I—John Halifax—am just the same, whether in the tan-yard or Dr. Jessop's drawing-room. The one position cannot degrade, nor the other elevate, me. I should not 'respect myself' if I believed otherwise."
"Eh?"—my father absolutely dropped his pipe in amazement. "Then, thee thinkest thyself already quite a gentleman?"
"As I told you before, sir—I hope I am."
"Fit to associate with the finest folk in the land?"
"If they desire it, and I choose it, certainly."
Now, Abel Fletcher, like all honest men, liked honesty ”

“ My poor father; now daily growing more sour and old, and daily leaning more and more upon John, who never ceased to respect, and make every one else respect, his master. Though still ostensibly a 'prentice, he had now the business almost entirely in his hands. It was pleasant to see how my father brightened up at his coming—how readily, when he turned homeward, he leaned upon John's strong arm, now the support of both him and me. Thus we walked through Norton Bury streets, where everybody knew us, and indeed, as it seemed to me this morning, nearly everybody greeted us—at least, one of us ”