Still I would rather not, for the time might be put to better use--except always it were necessary, and then, of course, it couldn't.

But as to anything degrading in it, I scorn the idea.

I heard my father once say that, to look down on those who have to do such things may be to despise them for just the one honorable thing about them .-- Shall I tell you what I understand by the word _menial_?
You know it has come to have a disagreeable taste about it, though at first it only meant, as you say, something that fell to the duty of attendants." "Do tell me," answered Hesper, with careless permission.
"I did not find it out myself," said Mary.

"My father taught me.

He was a wise as well as a good man, Mrs.Redmain." "Oh!" said Hesper, with the ordinary indifference of fashionable people to what an inferior may imagine worth telling them.
"He said," persisted Mary, notwithstanding, "that it is menial to undertake anything you think beneath you for the sake of money; and still more menial, having undertaken it, not to do it as well as possible." "That would make out a good deal more of the menial in the world than is commonly supposed," laughed Hesper.