Nellie was always jealous of the
welfare of the working class, and was ever vigilant as to its interests.
She did not know how matters could be rectified, but she did know that
she and her like suffered unnecessarily.
"There's no reason," she would say, "for decent folk bein' in poverty.
Look at the conditions that puir folk live in!"
"Hoot ay! Nellie, but we canna' help it," a neighbor would reply. "It's
no' for us to be better."
"What way is it no'?" she would demand indignantly. "Do you think we
couldna' be better folk if we had no poverty?"
"Ay, but the like o' us ken no better, an' it wadna' do if we had mair.
We micht waste it," and the tone of resignation always maddened her to
greater wrath.
"There's mair wasted on fancy fal-lals among the gentry than wad keep
many a braw family goin'. Look at the hooses we live in; the gentry
wadna' keep their dogs in them. The auld Earl has better stables for his
horses than the hooses puir folk live in!"
"That's maybe a' richt, Nellie, but you maun mind that we're no' gentry.
We havena' been brocht up to anything else. Somebody has got to work,
an' we canna' help it," and the fatalistic resignation but added fuel to
her anger.
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