Miss Price

“ Price, or “that Jane Price,” as she is more usually styled, is held in no great esteem in our village. Yet everything is said to fulfil some useful purpose, and if Mrs. Price does nothing else, at least she and her family serve as conspicuous moral warnings and give us something to throw up our hands about at intervals, when we exclaim:
“Did you EVER!!”
She is a widow of ample and well-fed proportions, owning her cottage, some bees and a pig, and apparently getting a fairly good living out of doing remarkably little sewing. ”

“ and Miss Crawford had only time to say in a pleasant manner, "I fancy Miss Price has been more used to deserve praise than to hear it," when being earnestly invited by the Miss Bertrams to join in a glee, she tripped off to the instrument, leaving Edmund looking after her in an ecstacy of admiration of all her many virtues, from her obliging manners down to her light and graceful tread. ”

“ But I cannot accept of Mr. Price's offer to become a purchaser of my body and soul. God made me as free as he did Enoch Price, and Mr. Price shall never receive a dollar from me, or my friends with my consent. ”

“ I want no one to do my hard work. I only want a steady, honest man, like you, to collect my rents, and I hope, Mr. Price, you will do that for me."
"I hope, sir," said Price, with joy and gratitude glowing in his honest face, "that I'll never give you cause to regret your goodness to me."
"And what are my sisters about here?" said Sir Arthur, entering the cottage and going behind the two ladies, who were busy measuring a pretty colored calico.
"It is for Susan, my dear brother. I knew she did not keep that guinea for herself," said Miss Somers. ”

“ Price married in June, 1888, the daughter of Mr. Brown, who for some time occupied important positions in the Ports Department at Fremantle. Throughout his somewhat varied career Mr. Price has proved a business man of resource and enterprise. Of a shrewd temperament, he is thoroughly straightforward in all his dealings, and possesses those excellent social qualities which tend to win him friends whereever he may go. No matter what position the vagaries of life have cast him into he has met them all bravely. A general favourite, there is no one that knows him but wishes him well. ”

“ His last office was the corner of King-street, Covent-garden, from whence he was driven, by a run of ill-luck, into a private decampment.
From that period, Price lived in obscurity. Though a perfect sycophant abroad, at home he was an absolute tyrant; nor could a prudent, virtuous woman, endowed with every qualification to render the marriage state happy, soften his brutal disposition, when the ample fortune he obtained with her had been squandered. Having a family of eight children to support, he turned his thoughts to fatal devices, and commenced to forge on the bank of England. ”

“ For, as folk say, a man goeth always to the best market, and albeit the stuff be not of the best, the price will depend on the skill of the market-man and market-woman.
So is it with plain women, of whom I have seen some that, by my troth, were as hot and lustful and as well inclined for love as the fairest, and would put themselves on the market and be as fain as any to get a good price and full value. ”

“ If a woman finds that she is in a store where they charge high prices, expecting to be beat down, she can mention, that she wishes to know the lowest price, as it is contrary to her principles to beat down charges. ”

“ The king, who was extremely careful and judicious in his expenditure, and whose maxim it was that the secret of dollars lies in groschen—exactly similar to our saying about pennies and pounds—on entering the queen's apartments one morning, espied a pretty new headdress, of which he jestingly inquired the price.
The queen replied in the same tone: "It is not always right that men should know the price of women's dress; they don't understand it, and think everything too dear." ”

“ The Story of a Quaint Device Julia Mansfield went disconsolately to her ball that night. She was learning, bit by bit, to pay the price that inevitably must be paid by a great heiress, and in the process she was coming to the conclusion that a little money⁠—enough⁠—is better than a lot. ”

“ I'm not a six-dollar-a-week stenog that has to marry for enough to eat. I can afford to buy a seventy-five dollar suit every winter of my life and twelve-dollar shoes every time I need them. The hat on my head cost me eighteen-fifty wholesale, without having to be beholding to nobody, and—"
"Ma don't mean those things, Clara. It's just when she hears the price girls pay for things nowadays she can't help being surprised the way things have changed." ”

“ This was a decisive blow for the ladies. The idea of getting goods below cost price awoke in them all the greed felt by women, whose enjoyment as buyers is doubled when they think they are robbing the tradesman. He knew them to be incapable of resisting anything cheap.
“But we sell everything for nothing!” exclaimed he gaily, taking up Madame Desforges's fan, which was behind him on the table. “For instance, here's this fan. I don't know what it cost.”
“The Chantilly lace was twenty-five francs, and the mounting cost two hundred,” said Henriette. ”

“ Price makes a specialty of orators and oratory; and will hold forth at the drop of a hat in Jonah Winch's store or anywhere else. Who is Mr. Price? He is a tall, sallow young man of eight and twenty, with a wedge-shaped face, a bachelor and a Methodist, who farms in a small way on the southern slope, and saves his money. He has become almost insupportable since they have named him for Moderator.
Get Mr. Sam Price into court. Here is a man who assuredly knows who they are: if we are, not much mistaken, he is their mouthpiece. ”

“ And the practice of beating down tradespeople, is vulgar and degrading, in any one. A woman, after a little inquiry, can ascertain what is the fair and common price of things; and if she is charged an exorbitant sum, she can decline taking the article. If the price be a fair one, it is not becoming in her to search for another article which is below the regular charge. ”

“ He rested his elbows likewise on the table, scanning his left hand, turning the great emerald ring that adorned it. "I believe every woman has her price, under certain conditions: first, that you know the need of money, and, most important, that you are old enough to understand what things can be bought!" ”

“ The more they tore up the drawing-room the better the young Prices were pleased, though it caused their mother secret agony. Besides the names of poets and their works, the parents were made to learn the phraseology of farming, lawn tennis, cricket, golf, sex-boredom and the religions of the world.
It was during the time when these social gymnastics were being most arduously practised by the Price family that they gave an evening party; one might almost suppose for the purpose of taking their minds off themselves. ”

“ Besides, the copper-skinned lady enjoys beating down prices and driving a bargain so well that she would think the clerk a cheat if he asked a fixed price from the first. She expects him to have a sliding scale of prices for his goods as she has for her furs. ”

“ Scott. "You can have a nice neat material, suitable for any season. Now, about the price. It must, of course, depend upon what you girls can afford, in the first place. Could you afford to pay twenty-five shillings for a dress, both of you? Of course, it will be made and everything found for that money."
Fanny shook her head at once, for the sum to her seemed enormous.
Miriam laid her hand on her arm. "Look here," she said, "my cousin would not want you to pay all that at once, she told you. How much should we have to pay a month for a dress like that?" asked Miriam. ”

“ On the other hand, for ladies of small means, it is not indispensable to their standing in society, that they should deal only at stores noted for selling higher than the usual price. It is a very poor boast; particularly when they cannot afford it. ”

“ Having no breath for words, he laid before Felicia, who was making bread, four dollars and a half (six trunks at seventy-five cents apiece) , clapped the yachting cap over Kirk's head, and cut an ecstatic pigeon-wing on the kitchen floor.
"One trip!" gasped Phil, touching the money reverently with a doughy finger. "And you're going to make two round trips every day! That's eighteen dollars a day! Oh, Ken, it's a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week! Why, we're—we're millionaires!" ”

“ Presbury grinned at his plate. He stole a glance at Mildred. Their eyes met. She flushed faintly.
"I've had a great deal of experience of women," pursued the general. "In my boyhood days I was a ladies' man. And of course since I've had money they've swarmed round me like bees in a clover-patch."
"Oh, General, you're far too modest," cried Mrs. Presbury. "A man like you wouldn't need to be afraid, if he hadn't a cent."
"But not the kind of women I want," replied he, firmly if complacently. "A lady needs money to keep up her position. She has to have it. ”

“ He lived then at Paddington with his wife, whom he went to nightly; and at lodgings, near Portland-place, he daily visited her aunt, where the implements for his undertakings were concealed. His next and chief object was a negociator, and he procured one in the following manner.
Previous to the drawing of the lottery for the year 1780, Price put an advertisement into the “Daily Advertiser” for a servant who had been used to live with a single gentleman, and the direction was to “C. C. Marlborough-street coffee-house, Broad-street, Carnaby-market.” ”

“ By these means Price was informed of his immediate danger, and took his measures accordingly. Eagerness to secure banished the foresight and caution which are necessary in the pursuit of artful villany. The animal whose sagacity is a proverb, can never be secured in haste; he must be entrapped by superior patience and caution.
Though Price had no partner in any branch of the forgery of a bank-note, yet he had a confidante in his wife’s aunt, by the mother’s side, whom he had known previous to his marriage. Her name was Pounteney; and, unknown to Mrs. Price, he was daily with her. ”

“ Why was she, the bride of the monstrously rich American, why was she trying to sell the bag? Did it mean the end of her resources? Or, were there still huge orders to be got from her? His shrewdness, trained by thirty years of dealing with all kinds of luxurious human beings, went exploring in vain. He was alarmed by her frown. He began hesitatingly:
"The jewels and the gold are only a small part of the value. The chief value is the unique design, so elegant yet so simple. For the jewels and the gold, perhaps two thousand francs—"
"The purse was twelve thousand francs," interrupted she. ”

“ Missy took them with trembling hands; they were the price of blood, and she almost shuddered at the touch of the little monster who [Pg 280] pressed close to her to gaze with delight upon her treasures. Not one word in the narrative had indicated remorse, or sorrow for being parted from her little brother. The servants, and the children in the street, seemed to have more feeling. After Missy had looked at the showy French locket, she unwrapped the sash, thinking, as she did so, how much reliance could be placed on the woman's statement that she was married to a German sea-captain. ”

“ Mildred showed how this depressed her.
"But don't you fret about that till you have to," advised Mrs. Belloc. "I've a notion that, even if it's true, it may not apply to you. Where a woman offers for a place that she can fill about as well as a hundred other women, she's at the man's mercy; but if she knows that she's far and away the best for the place, I don't think a man's going to stand in his own light. Let him see that he can make money through YOU, money he won't make if he don't get you. ”

“ When she had breakfasted she strolled in the Luxembourg Gardens, in even better humor with herself and with the world. There was still that horrid-faced future, but it was not leering into her very face. It was nearly four thousand francs away—"and if I hadn't been so stupid, I'd have got eight thousand, I'm sure," she said. But she was rather proud of a stupidity about money matters. And four thousand francs, eight hundred dollars—that was quite a good sum.
She had an instinct that the general would do something disagreeable about the French and English ports of departure for America. ”

“ It was curious, this double mania of the men and the women—the mania to get money, no matter how; the instantly succeeding mania to get rid of it, no matter how. Looking about her, Mildred felt that she was peculiar and apart from nearly all the women she knew. SHE got her money honorably. SHE did not degrade herself, did not sell herself, did not wheedle or cajole or pretend in the least degree. She had grown more liberal as her outlook on life had widened with contact with the New York mind—no, with the mind of the whole easy-going, luxury-mad, morality-scorning modern world. ”

“ and with this reminder other things came to her—how strange it was that, with all allowance for their merit, it should befall some people to be so inordinately valued, quoted, as they said in the stock-market, so high, and how still stranger, perhaps, that there should be cases in which, for some reason, one didn't mind the so frequently marked absence in them of the purpose really to represent their price. ”

“ They travel in two sets. One is where they meet young fellows of their own class—the kind they'll probably marry, unless they happen to draw the capital prize. The other set they travel in—well, it's the older men they meet round the swell hotels and so on—the yellow-back men."
"How queer!" exclaimed Mildred, before whose eyes a new world was opening. "But how do they—these—squabs—account for the money?"
"How do a thousand and one women in this funny town account at home for money and things?" retorted Mrs. Belloc. "Nothing's easier. ”